


We three, kings

by Esinde Nayrall (red_squared)



Series: The Scorching One [18]
Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2004-10-09
Updated: 2004-10-09
Packaged: 2017-10-03 21:50:29
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 10
Words: 32,663
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22603
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/red_squared/pseuds/Esinde%20Nayrall
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Three men. Three Christmases. Three Dark Spells.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Christmas Holidays, 1996-97

**Author's Note:**

> Originally written for the Celtic Moonstar SBRL FQF and archived Written for the Celtic-Moonstar FQF site, currently archived there.
> 
> Thanks first of all to [](http://thescarletwoman.livejournal.com/profile)[**thescarletwoman**](http://thescarletwoman.livejournal.com/) for organising the FQF, without which I would never have motivated myself to putting my fic out there for public consumption. And secondly, thanks to the fabulous beta-ing by [](http://latentfunction.livejournal.com/profile)[**latentfunction**](http://latentfunction.livejournal.com/) and [](http://rynne.livejournal.com/profile)[](http://rynne.livejournal.com/)**rynne**, without who(m?) this story would have been grammatically incorrect, more than a little AU, and generally unfit for public consumption. Any residual errors are my own.  
>   
> Originally posted [**here**](http://red-squared.livejournal.com/1178.html).

“…the children back to the school, and the rest of us made our own way back to Grimmauld Place after the Aurors took away the Death Eaters we’d managed to subdue. If it hadn’t been for the children… Sirius and I were well practised at duelling together. I always protected his back and he was the only person I would allow to stand behind me in a fight. If I hadn’t been so intent on putting myself between Lucius Malfoy and Neville and Harry, I’d never have left Sirius to stand in front of the Veil.”

If Lupin has just admitted that his carelessness led to Sirius’ death, he doesn’t seem particularly bothered by it. Certainly, there are others to blame – Sirius himself, for one – but the half‑blood’s flippancy bothers him. _Sirius is not a toy for _you _to retrieve as and when you choose. _Perhaps Lupin has resigned himself to the idea of Sirius being gone, so that if they fail tonight – and everything rests so critically on the first potion ingredient that it is entirely possible they _will _fail tonight – he won’t be overwhelmed by disappointment.

“Lucius Malfoy has much to answer for, and there is surely no better place for him than Azkaban. But Sirius didn’t fall through the Veil because of him,” he says pointedly. Lupin appears not to understand that it is with _him_ that he is angry. “What happens to him if we bring him back? This is a lot of trouble to go to, if you’re simply going to lock him up again, and only let him out when _you_ have time for him.”

Lupin’s smile falters for an instant, but it isn’t long before the false courtesy returns. “You almost sound as though you care about him.”

He clenches his jaw underneath his outwardly civil expression – Lupin isn’t the only one who can remain polite in the face of provocation. Forcing himself to smile, he replies, “You didn’t answer my question.”

“He won’t be locked up again – ever, if I have my strength. Most of his plans didn’t go beyond getting out of this house, clearing his name, killing Pettigrew, being able to look after his godson properly... But he’d made them. Told me I was part of them…”

_And where was I, in all of those plans,_ he wants to scream, but he slaps the impulse down. He is not a child anymore, and he threw away any claim he had to Sirius decades ago. _None of this is about me anymore. I am merely useful now._

Lupin sighs, and the polite expression is replaced by a troubled frown.

“I don’t mean to sound ungrateful to you. I couldn’t have done this without your help. It was such cruel timing, all around. If Fudge had arrived just a little earlier, he would have seen Sirius fighting on our side, and his name could have been cleared. As if that wasn’t bad enough, Sirius was the only real Healer we’d had, and when there were finally people who needed his help, he was no longer there to help them. So there was no point hurrying to Grimmauld Place – we had to stop at St. Mungo’s first. Coming back from there, we couldn’t get back into Grimmauld Place. Moody thought it was another trap, but he’d hit his head pretty hard and I don’t know if he really believed it. It wasn’t just that we couldn’t get in – the house simply wasn’t _there_. It was eerie, walking up the street, coming to the space between the two other houses and finding nothing.”

Lupin looks down at his hands – it was a nervous gesture of Sirius’, usually when his hands were shaking involuntarily, and he was glaring at them to stop. _If we cannot bring him back, Lupin, will part of you become him?_ Another memory – he can’t remember where he knows it from – of Sirius glaring at his hands, trying to stop them shaking. When that didn’t work, he put his face behind them, hiding his shame from the world.

“Eventually, they decided it must have been Kreacher’s work. That he wasn’t willing to let us in after Dumbledore questioned him, and after Sirius died, he didn’t owe the rest of us anything. It wasn’t Kreacher, though. Even though I could no longer see where Number Twelve was, I knew why we couldn’t get back in, and it wasn’t because of Kreacher. House elves aren’t that powerful. I should thank you now, before I forget – if this works, I _will_ forget – for helping me get back inside. And for your assistance with the potion.”

He can understand why Lupin came to him, rather than to the members of that useless Order. Spells that require knowledge of powerful Dark Magic come relatively easily to him. He is still surprised that Lupin is willing to use them, however – the Lupin he remembers from his school days was an idealistic, self‑righteous bore, as most Gryffindors were.

For himself, he isn’t particularly eager to see Sirius again, and never had any intention of returning to Grimmauld Place. But the alternative is Lupin’s threat – that if he doesn’t assist, certain things he wishes to keep concealed about himself will be revealed. He has agreed partly in exchange for the other man’s silence. More than the threat however, it was the taunting smile, the doubting expression, the hinted but unspoken sentiment of; _Sirius could have done this. You were never a quarter the man he was_.

“There’s no need to thank me. I imagine I’d do much the same, in your position.” Even as he says it, he hopes fervently that he’ll never find himself in such a position. Settling against the wall behind him, he turns the little bundle he is carrying over and over in his hands.

Hearing of Sirius’ disappearance upset him more than he is willing to admit, and he acknowledges that part of the reason he is here is to get his old rival back. They competed for everything when younger, and part of his reason for helping the half‑blood tonight is to win in this contest neither he nor Sirius ever formally acknowledged. To put himself so far ahead that Sirius, named after one of the brightest stars in the sky, will never outshine him again. The water inside the cauldron – liquid, really, as there are far more sinister things than water there – starts to seethe, and he stands, seeing Lupin do the same on the other side.

He thought he won nearly twenty years ago now, when Sirius betrayed them all. Surely when the other man – boy, he’d been at the time – was disgraced and effectively removed forever, he won conclusively? Afterwards, after Sirius was taken to Azkaban, he doubted Sirius’ guilt when so many others believed. But speaking up would have put him in Azkaban, too. Another reason for his being here tonight is a self‑imposed penance, in payment for not speaking out earlier.

Other memories of Sirius go back to when they still loved one another, were closer than most brothers. The first letter he received by owl, the first letter addressed to him alone, was from Sirius. But Lupin isn’t interested in hearing his own memories of Sirius, and is already starting to speak again.

“I imagine you would, too. I’m sure Sirius would have. More for the challenge, than for anything else. I always thought you and Sirius had more in common than either of you were prepared to admit.” That is certainly true – both the similarities, and the reluctance to acknowledge them. He realises he is twisting the bundle and its contents between his fingers when the cloth starts to protest. “You must be tired of hearing about it, though.”

_That_, however, is not true. He never tires of hearing it – it is the highest praise anyone has ever been able to give him. And he has never lacked for praise. It shocks him how much hearing these words moves him now, when he thought he’d never be compared to Sirius again.

Yet he stole and then kept that mirror – the small, book sized mirror – which allowed him to speak with whoever held one of the other three, and they to speak with him. All of Sirius’ friends – and Sirius himself – carried one, and they were clearly recognisable as belonging to a set of four, and to that group of Gryffindors. He’d stolen it from one of his fellow Death Eaters – not knowing at the time whether it was Pettigrew or Lupin who’d betrayed Potter. He’d stolen it for no other reason than to be closer to Sirius. _Seemed pointless until recently – it wasn’t as though I ever used the thing to get in touch with him, or he ever knew I had it to get in touch with me._

He only ever saw the mirror alert him once. It was after Sirius vanished into the Veil, but he responded to it because he hoped so desperately that it would _be _Sirius, trying to contact him at last. Whoever it was dropped their mirror with a shocked gasp, and all he saw was a glimpse of untied trainers, really awful socks, and a faraway owl cage, before he found the presence of mind to break the connection.

Nearly a week later, the mirror – which had constantly tried to alert him, and which he in turn had constantly ignored – flew into his hands by _itself_, and an hour later, Remus Lupin was threatening to hammer down the door of his flat.

“I never tired of it.” _I loved him. _“I stole Pettigrew’s mirror to be closer to Sirius. Broke through the binding charms on it and attuned it to me. I was so close to finishing what I’d joined the Death Eaters to do, and wanted a way to get into contact with him. I never got that chance.” This strikes at the heart of something else that has bothered him for a while. “I ignored the mirror after it tried to alert me. How were you able to make it bring itself into my hands so that you could track me down?”

“The mirrors alert you if any part of your name – first, middle or last – is called into one of the others. Only three remain now – Sirius gave his to Harry and took mine for himself. I didn’t know that Peter’s was with you. James’ mirror was destroyed along with most of Godric’s Hollow. Harry destroyed the one Sirius gave him, too, but fixed it to try and get in touch with Sirius again. I’d forgotten about the mirrors completely, until Sirius uncovered them last year.”

Lupin smiles slightly, and reaches a hand out for the bundle.

“It was James that altered the charms on the mirrors once we left school, so that they would relocate themselves into the hands of their owner if that person’s full name was spoken. It was supposed to be used in case one of us was hurt, or unable to respond to the mirror, and the rest of us would be able to track them.”

Lupin unwraps the canvas bundle and takes out the fragments nestled inside it. With his other hand, he shakes the kinks out of the cloth, and the portrait painted onto the canvas blinks at the sudden light.

“So you knew all of my name.”

“Yes, Sirius told me once.” Lupin is staring at the painting on the canvas, stroking a finger gently over the dark‑haired figure smiling back at him. “This is all I have of him. The last link. If this fails…”

“It won’t fail.” He is trying to convince himself. “It’s a very powerful, Dark Spell. It’s worked with a far weaker soul specimen.” Everything depends on the portrait. Everything depends on a portrait of a seven‑year‑old boy, altered, with Dark Magic using Sirius’ own blood, into a painting of the thirty‑five‑year‑old man who fell through the Veil. Everything depends on the faint pieces of soul that bring the painted Sirius to life being strong enough to wrench the rest of Sirius’ spirit from wherever it has vanished to.

“How do you - ”

“Sirius told you my middle name. What else did he tell you about me?” Lupin looks at him blankly. He can just imagine all of the things that Sirius has told the other man about him. Things the other man is too polite to mention. “Did he tell you how he believed I died?”

“You joined the Death Eaters. They killed you. I believed him until I saw your face in Harry’s mirror.”

“He told you the truth. Five years after he was taken to Azkaban, when Mother realised that she would never be able to free him, that she would be the last of the Blacks, she gambled everything and performed this spell to restore me to her.”

The tension in Lupin’s face – tension he thought was as much a part of the man as his silvering hair, and shabby clothing – vanishes, and his expression suffuses with something he’s never seen this Gryffindor wear before. _Hope_.

Something in the sound the cauldron is making alters subtly. Lupin holds both hands over the seething cauldron. From where he stands, it looks almost as though the fire on which the cauldron is balanced is burning through the cauldron and the potion in it, sending its sparks into the vapour rising from the liquid’s surface. The thick, cloudy steam rising from the liquid blocks his view of the other man.

“That was why I asked you what you intended to do with him, if we succeed tonight. Because the plans my mother had when she restored me weren’t any plans of mine. After I regained my strength, I fled the house. I was grateful to her for giving me life – not once, but twice – but I would never allow myself to be used by her again.”

“I read everything about the spell – Sirius and I both did, last year. We wanted to find some way to break whatever link Harry has with - ” Lupin suddenly appears to remember that he is talking to a former Death Eater, and changes the subject abruptly. “I need to know so much, so much that the books left out, so much that they don’t say… Does it… Will he feel any…”

“It won’t hurt him.” It’s not the full truth. As long as Sirius felt no pain when his body and soul were separated, he should not be hurt when he is restored. “What you have planned for him, when he returns, could destroy him. So be certain before you do this thing.”

Lupin hesitates again, turning the bone fragments in his hand. “I doubted. For so many years. As little as a year ago now, I would have allowed his soul rest and not attempted to restore him. I would mourn of course, as I have. But I would have let him be. Now, however… This last year he convinced me. For the first time since he returned from Azkaban, I knew I was loved. I can’t say whether he believed me or not, but I loved him as well.”

The liquid’s surface looks almost solid now, a hard, dazzling, glittering, diamond‑like layer forming on the top, pulsing with its own light.

“He would want to come back.” Lupin’s voice drops to a whisper, a fervent prayer. “I know it.”

He meets Lupin’s gaze, and nods. The other man drops the painting into the cauldron, flinching as it sinks. A heartbeat later, the fragments in his other hand join it.

He has studied the Dark Arts extensively, Lupin has studied the Defence Against the Dark Arts extensively, and yet the two of them drew straws as to which of them would enter the Black family crypt to retrieve bone fragments from Antares Black’s tomb. Father was not much older than Sirius when he was murdered.

Lupin is whispering the incantation under his breath. Instantly, the potion’s colour turns dark blue, and the hard, glittering surface breaks, the liquid roiling again. The corners of Lupin’s mouth lift into a cautious smile. “The spell has caught,” he confirms, softly.

Regulus Black lets out a breath he has only just realised he’s been holding.


	2. Christmas Holidays, 1995-96

“Where is everyone else, anyway?” He can still smell breakfast in the air, toast and tea and eggs and bacon, and his stomach makes an angry, hungry sound, even though it’s barely an hour since it was last fed.

“Sleeping. It was pretty hectic last night. No one knew what was going on, and nobody wanted to be asleep when news arrived.”

“I heard about what happened from Minerva. So Harry saw the attack through a snake’s eyes?”

“It must just be the blood connection between Harry and Voldemort. That’s the only thing that’s changed.”

“Harry was having these visions even before the blood connection was made. And quite a bit has changed - Voldemort’s powers have returned, for one.”

Sirius ignores him, or perhaps doesn’t hear him. “He can’t even be aware of the link.” He isn’t sure whether Sirius means Voldemort or Harry, and asks him to clarify. “_Voldemort_, Remus. We can take it for granted that Harry doesn’t know about it. Perhaps you should say something to him.”

He looks up in surprise, wishing Sirius would stop pacing incessantly. “Me? He never speaks to me, Sirius. You’re the one he trusts.”

“But you’re better at this sort of thing than I am, Remus. Harry seems to think Voldemort’s possessed him, and I can’t tell him why he shouldn’t be afraid without telling him everything I shouldn’t.” Sirius glares at the pantry for some unfathomable reason. “He’s so scared, he thinks _he’s _the one who’s done this to Arthur Weasley, and I can’t say anything because Dumbledore advises against it.”

“We have to let ourselves be guided by Dumbledore in this, Sirius.” He’s said the words a thousand times. He doesn’t believe them himself, not entirely, but he will say them a thousand times more, if they bring his lover peace. “Neither of us know as much about Voldemort as the Headmaster, and we can’t take chances with whatever connection he has with Harry.”

Sirius is lost to him again, swept up in his own world. This is nothing new – Sirius with a problem he can’t solve has always been impossible to live with.

“All I could do was tell him to stop worrying, and then I had to make myself leave. I _hated _it when people said that to me, promised myself I would never be so patronising, and now I can’t answer my own godson’s questions. Have to leave it at ordering him to _stop worrying_, because I can’t trust myself not to tell him everything.”

Remus sighs, hating this. Hating that something is bothering Sirius and that there is nothing he can do about it. He reaches a hand out to Sirius, and Sirius looks at it for a moment before he lets Remus pull him into his lap and rests his head on Remus’ shoulder.

_Why do you look so surprised?_ Remus thinks wearily. _Are you here, in my lap, because you want to be, or because it’s what we’ve always done, or because you can’t have anybody else?_ To be fair, Sirius was probably thinking about the likelihood of them being caught sitting like this, but it hurts every time Sirius hesitates before coming to him. As Sirius settles into his lap, his nose discerns another smell he has started to associate with Sirius. This smell, of stale alcohol that completely overpowers the scent of breakfast and – more importantly – of his lover, is less pleasing.

“Have you been drinking again?”

Sirius does not quite glance at the considerable dent in the firewhisky stores that appears to have materialised in the week and a half he’s been away. “Would you believe me if I said ‘no’?”

He tries not to let his displeasure show on his face, but he hates the taste of the stuff in Sirius’ mouth. “Sirius…”

“Let it be, Remus,” Sirius says impatiently. He lets the subject drop. He doesn’t want another argument. Not when he’s been away for so long. Changing the topic of conversation back to his original concern, Sirius says, “I asked Harry if he’d told Dumbledore, and he told me he had. Why would he still be so upset? What if Dumbledore didn’t say anything to him? He never told us why Voldemort went after Harry the first time.”

Lowering his voice further, even though everyone else in the house has gone up to bed, Sirius adds, “I thought Voldemort wanted to destroy the Potter line, and all of the defences James and I planned were structured around that. Why didn’t Dumbledore tell us it was only Harry that Voldemort was after? He knew about the prophecy – if it was only Harry who was in danger, Lily and James needn’t have died. Babies all look the same at that age – we could have hidden him in a hundred different places.”

When Sirius ran away from this house at the age of sixteen, he turned his back on many of the ideals and values of his pure‑blood family, but his upbringing still dominated the way he thought, and what he considered important. Even five years after he left, blood was what mattered. He wasn’t the only one – James also thought along similar lines, and together, they convinced Lily and Remus that it was the Potter bloodline that Voldemort was trying to eliminate. After all, the Death Eaters had just gone after James’ parents the week before.

In 1981, within days of that awful October night, when Remus heard talk about The Boy Who Lived and of Lily’s sacrifice, it strengthened that belief. She wasn’t of James’ blood. Voldemort had not been after her. She shouldn’t have died.

Right now, Remus doesn’t want to think about what they didn’t know then. Stroking Sirius’ dark hair, Remus says, “Harry will be safe at Hogwarts. No one can reach him there. All we have to do is find a way around the connection. Dumbledore is probably already thinking of a way.”

“Harry’s only fifteen, Remus. They’re hurting him, and we can’t do anything to stop it.”

“We know the link was made through Dark Blood Magic. Your family must have had hundreds of books on the subject. We can find something to help him, if Dumbledore hasn’t thought of something already. Hermione is probably already turning the Hogwarts library upside down.” He feels Sirius’ lips against his throat, curving into a smile. “The link with Voldemort. Did Harry tell you how it happened?”

“I thought you knew,” Sirius says tiredly. “You said you’d had an owl from Dumbledore before I arrived. I didn’t want to talk about it if you already knew.”

“I didn’t know.” He has to be careful not to link this back to Sirius’ earlier comment about Dumbledore not telling any of them anything. “His owl told me Voldemort had risen again, that you were going to alert the Order, and was it all right if you could stay with me.” _How am I supposed to rally the Order, _Sirius asked furiously when he arrived,_ when most of them still think I belong in Azkaban?_ In the preoccupation of dealing with that dilemma, as well as the one of moving into the new headquarters, there was never really time for a discussion of what happened after the Tournament.

“There’s a spell. Potion, really. Dark Magic. Wormtail brewed it. It needs bones, flesh and blood. When Harry’s blood was used it formed a link between him and Voldemort – Harry no longer has the protection of Lily’s sacrifice.”

Remus starts stroking Sirius’ hair again, while he tries to think of a solution. It is Sirius who speaks first, though. “If it’s linked to Lily’s protection, we should be able to do something. The charm she used came from one of Mother’s spell books on Blood Magic.”

_It wasn’t your fault she died. Or James, either. I won’t have you think that._ He has tightened his grip around Sirius, because the other man sits up to look at him, saying, “James found the book at our place. I didn’t realise I’d taken it with me when I left home.”

“Sirius, if it protected her son, do you think Lily would have cared whether or not it was Dark Magic?” _Your mother was like that too,_ he wants to say, but now is probably not the time, and this house is certainly not the place.

“Lily had to _die_ for the charm to work. She must have known - ”

“The book will still be in our flat, then,” he says, unwilling to discuss the past, especially when there is much that they can do now. “That will give us a starting point, and from then on… well. I’m sure we’ll find something.”

“I wish I could…”

“You can’t come to the flat.” Aside from it not being safe for Sirius to be seen in public since he was recognised at King’s Cross, the only thing that keeps Grimmauld Place from turning on them and swallowing them whole is Sirius remembering his Black heritage, that he _is _a Black and still tied to the house in subtle ways. Most importantly of all, it is necessary for Sirius to believe that this is his home.

The mental drain of it almost destroyed Sirius when they first started to make the place habitable. If the protection spells on the house weren’t so strong, or if the Order had any alternatives available to it, he knows he’d consider taking Sirius with him. _Just for a little while…_

“I wish I could go with you. I know I can’t.” The admission obviously hurts Sirius, but Remus needs those words, even if they are only words, _I wish I could go with you_, because Sirius can give him nothing else apart from his company, and he can never be sure whether it is offered because Sirius loves him, because of what they once were together before Azkaban, or because Sirius has nothing better to do.

It is the words he craves, because they are spoken so rarely.

“It won’t take me long. I can Apparate there and back. It’ll only take me a few hours to find the book, and anything we have on Soul Magic. You and I can work on the solution together. You’ll be able to help Harry, and you won’t have to put yourself in danger to do it.”

That finally raises a genuine smile on his lover’s face. “You think of everything, Remus.”

“Not everything, Sirius. I think of you. Always.” Sirius looks for a moment as though he is going to kiss him, but Remus forestalls him and nudges the other man gently out of his lap so he can stand. “Did you sleep at all, last night?”

“Not really. Didn’t want to chance Fred or George leaving and trying to see what was wrong with Arthur. I hated having to do it. If it’d been me…” He hopes Sirius isn’t thinking back to the beginning of their sixth year at Hogwarts, when Antares Black was murdered and Sirius and his younger brother were ordered home from school before the Christmas holidays started.

“I had a long night, and could do with some rest.” The only way he’ll be able to convince Sirius to take rest is to pretend he needs some himself. “Perhaps we could take a nap.”

“I thought you said you’d go back to the flat.”

“I’ll go this afternoon.”

Sirius looks as though he is debating whether or not to drag him to the front hall and bodily fling him through the door. “All right. I won’t be able to think straight when I’m this tired. Harry’s safe as long as he’s in this house, anyway.” Sirius drags one hand over his face, as though he can rub his tiredness away. _If only it were so easy._ Looking at him again, Sirius smiles, saying, “When you said that _we_ could take a nap…”

“I meant that you could go to your room, I could go to mine, we could lock them both from the inside and then I could Apparate into your bed and sit on you until you fall asleep.”

At last, the other man laughs. “Come on, then.”


	3. Christmas Holidays, 1976-77

Such powerful magic, to hide the carriage, the thestrals, and the two of them from the sight of the crowds milling in the streets of London, and Mother does it without a second thought. What it must be like to have that kind of power. _Having that kind of power didn’t keep Father alive._

It is nearly half past five on a Thursday afternoon, and for some reason that means that there are more Muggle carriages on the streets than normal. Automobiles, Remus calls them, the name suggesting that they make themselves go. He can attest to that _now_ – a week ago, he wouldn’t have been able to see the thestrals he knows are pulling the carriage he is in, either.

Ignoring the other traffic, their carriage plunges through the streets and in between the automobiles smoothly, without jostling its passengers. He can’t blame the carriage, or the ride – his hands are shaking because he is frightened.

Mother is peering coolly through the carriage curtains, at the Muggles on the road. “I am so tired of having to hide from them,” she says softly. “All my life… If they fear our power so much, why should _we _be the ones to hide ourselves from them?”

This is an old complaint of hers. “Is that why you supported Voldemort?” Voldemort, the newest force in the world of pure‑blood politics, strongly advocates ‘destroying the links between Muggles and Wizards’, which is a euphemistic way of saying that all Muggleborns and half‑bloods should be destroyed.

“Voldemort agreed with _us_, Sirius.” He smiles inwardly at her ire. “The House of Black has advocated the segregation of Muggle and Wizarding folk for generations. Long before this newcomer arose.” She sniffs delicately, and pulls the curtains shut. “Voldemort is no pure‑blood name _I _ever heard,” she murmurs, half under her breath.

“Why did you support him then?”

“Because he was right.”

“Was?” For a moment, he is hopeful…

…until she turns from the curtains, fixes him with an unflinching stare and says, “He _is _right. About many things.”

He shifts against the velvet seat, and places his hands under his thighs to stop them shaking. _Is he right in thinking that agreeing with him means you have to follow him?_ He knows better than to say the words out loud, though.

“You did well today, Sirius,” she says absently.

“Thank you, Mother.”

“Look at me, puppy.” He does, wishing that she’d stop calling him by his baby name. At least she doesn’t do it where others can hear – that would shame her nearly as much as it would shame him. “I didn’t say the words just for the sake of saying them. I think we almost managed to convince Jasmine Rookwood, if not her brothers, too. Next time, we’ll have to spend more time circulating, so we can see how many people have joined or left our faction, but today I thought it would be best to bring you home as soon as possible. You had started to look distressed, and we can’t show weakness in front of the rest of the Council.”

Distressed is one way of putting it.

Father was horribly wounded last week under the Dark Mark, and he and Regulus were called home before the Christmas holidays began. He was sitting by Father’s bedside with Mother – Regulus had been asleep – when Father finally died. Within the hour, Mother insisted he start fulfilling his duties as the Black heir sooner rather than later – _she probably doesn’t think she’ll outlive Father long _– and one of the first of those was attending these meetings, as Father had.

_Filthy Dark Mark_. The skull and serpent is the symbol chosen by and associated with Voldemort and those who follow him in secret. Lucius Malfoy and Morgan Wilkes were the ones to invite themselves around to Grimmauld Place for tea during the summer holidays. They suggested that rather than simply ‘supporting’ Voldemort by agreeing with his policies, his parents should do as Malfoy and Wilkes themselves had – swear fealty to _Lord_ Voldemort. _Admirable goals_, Father had said of Voldemort’s agenda, _and I agree that it is better for Wizarding and Muggle communities to remain separate, but we’ve followed that dictum for centuries, and we’ve done it quite well. We don’t need him to lead our campaign._

Out loud, he says, “That’s high praise. Next time, I’ll try to maintain my composure.”

The request for fealty – to become Voldemort’s _servants_ – was met with severe displeasure from both Mother and Father. He should be grateful, he supposes, that it at least caused them to turn their noses up to Voldemort’s campaign. Even if it _was _only after it became clear that Voldemort was prepared to threaten the nobility and prestige of the older pure‑blood families to consolidate his power over all wizards – the Blacks, the Notts, the Crouches, the Bones, and the Prewetts. Apart from anything else it still rankles, being asked to _join,_ when nobody in his family ever started anything without the full intention of leading it from beginning to end. _It wouldn’t be so difficult if the House of Black’s views weren’t exactly the same as Voldemort’s._

“I know you think I’m asking a lot of you, puppy. I never intended for you to be tested so young.”

Not all of the pure‑blood dissenters have the same dark reputation as his family, but the House of Black is just as determined not to have anything to do with this new threat as the rest of them. Personally, he thinks it has more to do with an inborn – in_bred_, James would have laughed – reluctance to relinquish their power and prestige to anyone else. Especially to someone who styles himself ‘Lord’. When he asked his parents what the title meant, Mother scoffed and said it was a title bestowed upon those whose duty it was to care for the Muggles on their land.

Two of the Bones were the first to die, murdered before the summer. Mother, Father, Regulus and himself all visited Amelia, the new Mistress of the House of Bones, during the summer to offer their condolences, and – at least for Mother and Father – to ascertain whether or not Amelia intended to run for Minister of Magic. The incumbent is yet to succumb to ill health, but they all believe it is only a matter of months before the Council of Seers meets in formal session to appoint the next Minister of Magic.

“Should Regulus start coming with us, too?”

Since the attacks on pure‑blood families began, the Council of Seers has met more in the last few months than in the five years preceding them. Not formal Councils – formal Council will not be called until the current Minister dies – but they can meet in threes and fours for tedious talks over tea, gritting their teeth into false smiles and paying ‘social calls’ on one another before the vote trading begins. The meetings are unbearable. ‘Who will be the next Minister for Magic?’ ‘What will you give me if I support your cause?’ It makes his head hurt. They are returning from the fourth meeting of the day, and Mother is expecting to host at least one more at home, later in the afternoon.

Everything would be simpler if Voldemort’s supporters came out into the open. But they hide behind masks, no one is sure how many Councillors are also Death Eaters, and then there is the complicating matter of memory charms and the Imperius curse. And where those fail, Voldemort’s supporters aren’t shy of using the other Unforgivables. The visit from Malfoy and Wilkes wasn’t an invitation. _Mother should have realised that Malfoy and Wilkes would never have made the offer as boldly as they had if they’d thought for a moment it might be rebuffed_. It was a warning.

Mother spoke her intentions freely to Morgan Wilkes, telling him that his _Lord_ would find no _followers_ in the House of Black. _They took such a risk, coming into the open to solicit Mother and Father’s support… _Malfoy and Wilkes smiled politely, gathered their cloaks and gloves, and left. Three months later, the Dark Mark went up over London, and Father was found dying without a wound on him.

Now, he and Mother are returning from an informal Council meeting at the Rookwoods’ home, trying to ensure their own alliances are holding together before they can think about forging new ones.

“He should, but he’s only twelve. It’s bad enough I’ve had to force _you _into this before you’re of age.”

Cassiopeia Black is not the type to give in without a fight, and this is where she needs Sirius. _The House of Black has always led our faction – we follow _nobody. _I’m not letting some newcomer remove us from our rightful place. We will mourn Antares in private, but in front of these cowards, you will play the role he did at these councils – speak with me, mingle and consolidate our allies, and eventually help me to advise the Ministry. I know you’re still in school, but you will have to find time for all of these things as well._

He’s not convinced of the wisdom of this. _If our policy of keeping Muggles and Wizards separate wasn’t so similar to Voldemort’s, we might win more support._ It makes sense to him – how will they win _more _support for their faction in the Council of Seers if they don’t give the other Councillors a choice between the House of Black and Voldemort? If they stay as they are, they can only watch as their faction divides and splinters with them on one side, and Malfoy, Wilkes, and Voldemort on the other.

He made the argument to his parents, and both of them said it was clever, but unworkable. He can hear Father’s voice in his head, even now. _Changing our position in response to a threat is out of the question. It will make us look weak. It will make us look unpredictable. It will make us look uncertain. Nobody who appears to be any of those three things is likely to attract the support or confidence of anybody else._

And now Mother wants him to take Father’s place in Council. As if doing it is as easy as merely saying the words. What chance does he have of convincing the other Councillors when he hasn’t managed to convince himself? _Why can’t Mother see that it is better to challenge Voldemort by opposing what he stands for than by trying to take his supports for ourselves by guile?_ Especially since it is so difficult to know for certain who his supporters are. Every time he makes the suggestion, she dismisses him, tells him to be quiet or changes the subject.

_I loved Father, but what did he die for? Defending the pre-eminence of the Noble and Most Ancient House of Black?_

“We’ll be home soon, puppy.” Mother flicks the curtains apart and glances out of the window, before turning back to him. “You’re wondering why they went after Antares.”

She still picks up some of his stray thoughts, especially when he is tried or upset. At least she can’t read his mind wholly. At least he can still conceal what truly matters.

“They thought that because Antares was older than me, the wards at the house would be keyed to him. They forgot, or never bothered to find out, that even though we were both Blacks before we wed, _I _was from the ruling line, not Antares. The wards were spelled to me once _my _mother died. If they’d been keyed to your father, we wouldn’t have a home to go back to. That’s why they’ll come after me next.”

He looks up in shock, as the carriage comes to rest outside their house. Jumping out, he turns and lends Mother his arm.

“It’s all right, puppy. You and Regulus will be cared for. I’ll show both of you how the wards are attuned, before I die. And while I still have strength to fight, it’s not likely to be any time soon.”

“This is all the more reason why you should let me study at the Auror Academy. It would be my job to go after people like this.”

All four of them – Peter, James, Remus, and he – _want _to enrol in the Auror Academy after school. For Remus however, it will be impossible – simply sitting the entrance exam may expose him as a werewolf. Remus laughed about it though, and said he could still come to the Ministry with them after school – Sirius and James to enrol in the Academy, and Remus to register himself as a dark creature. And that made them all laugh, until one of the Aurors who came to the school to give them Careers Advice took Sirius aside privately and told him not to bother. That the Aurors would never accept a recruit from a family with the reputation the Blacks had. It made him so angry, he was barely able to concentrate on his OWLs.

“You can do more at home, Sirius, and I _need _you to fulfil your duty. You’re younger and less intimidating than Antares was, so the rest of the Council of Seers are more likely to let their guard down around you and let things slip. We’ll have to eventually decide on our choice of candidate, but I can tell you now that it will be such a close fight between Amelia and Barty that if we wait until most of the dust has settled, whichever side we lend our support to will succeed. And the winner will remember his or her courtesies, show their gratitude, and admit you into the Academy.”

“You don’t have to smooth the way for me.” She doesn’t look convinced, just looks at him from inside the wrap of her shawl, waiting for him to continue. He is on dangerous ground now – attempting to manipulate her rarely works, and she’ll be extremely displeased if she manages to see through the attempt – but if he can make her believe that he is only trying to get into the Academy out of spite, he might be able to get her permission, and even her blessing. “The only thing is, you’d need to release me from coming to meetings with you. A lot of our political agenda isn’t viewed sympathetically by the Department of Magical Law Enforcement, and I was told I wouldn’t get very far with my application to the Academy, regardless of my marks - ”

Her face pales with rage, and her grip on his arm tightens. “Let me guess what they said to you,” she hisses. “They said that your application would be laughed out because it would be unacceptable to have a wizard in the Department of Magical Law Enforcement who came from a family so steeped in Dark Magic? But they want you to conveniently forget that at the same time, they need our support if they want to permit Aurors to use Unforgivables when capturing suspects.”

She tightens the black shawl around her shoulders, waiting for him to open the front door for her. “Come with me.” He follows her through the house, to the study. “There are things I need to teach you, and you won’t have time to learn them if you’re studying to be an Auror. Open that door.” As she speaks, a door materialises, next to the entrance to the study. He is sure it is the first time he is seeing it.

Inside are hundreds of little bottles, shimmering in the half‑light, filled with dark liquid. “This is the heart of our defences. This is where the wards to Grimmauld Place are attuned. Every Black that was ever born in this house, born to the name ‘Black’ rather than marrying it, is represented in this room. Come inside.” She steps into the room – it isn’t much larger than the pantry in the main kitchen – and pulls him in after her. “The phials on the wall contain the blood of every single one of those Blacks.”

He manages to keep the shock off his face, and stares around him. The blood in the phials is still red, and looks liquid. It must be charmed. The phials themselves are arrayed in a similar pattern to the names on the family tree, expect there are fewer of them, and all of them are labelled with the house name ‘Black’.

“You see this, here? This is the ruling line. This is your blood, and Regulus’, here.” She points and his gaze follow her hand. “And next to them are my blood and your father’s. Leading up from me, you can see it’s joined to two phials, also? Black on both sides. _Toujours pur_. All the way to the first of us that came to England from France, bringing the blood and the motto.

“This is what it takes to keep us safe, Sirius. All of this. The keys to our defences are here. This is what I need to teach you, for you to inherit this house, and manage it. And because it is considered to be Dark Magic, and because you can’t practise it while you are still in school, it will need to wait until you finish school and can return to me. You can be an Auror later, puppy.”

As though it is a hobby. _It’s not as though I’m asking _you_ to be an Auror. But why won’t you let _me_?_

“First, you have to learn this. I need you at meetings with me, every minute you’re not at school, because at the rate this difficulty with Voldemort is going, we’re going to see many key positions in the Ministry free up, and I want our people in them. I’d pull you out of school now, but you’ve less than two years to go.” She smiles at him fondly, and ruffles his hair. “It would be a pity to remove you before you finish your NEWTs, after you got so many OWLs.”

“Could we at least change - ”

The fond smile vanishes instantly. “We are not changing our position on anything, either. It was untenable before your father’s death, and this close to his passing, it is absolutely out of the question. I will not see us weakened like that.”

He fights down frustration, and tries again. “I understand, but - I want to do something, to fight Voldemort.”

“You _are _fighting him, by helping me. _It is out of the question_, Sirius. _Never _ask me again.”

It isn’t the same, and he can never make her see. There is a difference between fighting Voldemort to protect yourself and your power, and fighting Voldemort to protect those without any power. Instead, he forces himself to smile, and gives in. “All right.”

“All right? Just like that?”

“Just like that. I won’t ask you again.” She looks pleased, but surprised. If she is running her fingers through his mind again, she will know that he is perfectly sincere. He has no intention of bringing the subject up again. Clearly, he will not be able to alter the culture of centuries of pure‑blood thinking and political intrigue from within his family, as he once hoped. _Don’t think about it. Not here. Not now._

“Thank you, puppy. I know I ask a lot of you.”

Removing one of the books from the stack under the phials, she walks into the study, and puts it down on his desk, on top of his Transfiguration textbook.

Turning back to him, she continues, “For now, I have Myrna Nott arriving to take tea – hopefully I can convince her to talk her husband into rethinking his allegiances – I think that fool fully intends to align with Avery. It’s not necessary for you to attend, so run along and get changed. Once Regulus wakes up, I’ll show both of you how the wards work, and how to strengthen them. Perhaps that will calm him down – I don’t know what else to do with him.”

It alarms him that the wards need to be strengthened _further_ – after the visit from Malfoy and Wilkes, Father responded by putting almost every protective charm known to Wizarding-kind on the ancestral home. _What more is there to do?_ At any rate, it will be at least another three hours before Regulus and himself are required to make an appearance in the study, then. Regulus will still be drowsy from the sedative Kreacher keeps feeding him – Mother isn’t sure how to manage his anger over Father’s death, and finds that the easiest way to deal with it is not to.

“All right.”

He starts to walk away, when she stops him with a barely audible “Sirius.”

“Yes?”

“You really did do very well today, darling. Your father would have been proud of you too.” He dips his head slightly in acknowledgement and leaves the room.

_Father would have been proud of me – for doing what? Allowing myself to become Mother’s tool? Or is this another way for her to prod me into doing what she wants? _As soon as he reaches the long hallway leading to the nursery, his steps quicken until he is running. This thought has played through his mind off and on for months, and it is only now that he is out of Mother’s presence that he can allow it room in his brain.

_Let me be an Auror, or find someone else to vote with you in Council. _The thought is strangely appealing, but he can just imagine the look on her face if he throws a tantrum like Regulus – who up until now was the model of an obedient, dutiful son. _Throwing a tantrum and giving her an ultimate won’t work – she’ll just drug me like she drugged Regulus and deal with me later. _He can think of nothing he has, nothing he can offer her in return for her conceding to him, nothing he can use to bargain with, nothing except…

_What if I left and then said, ‘Let me be an Auror, and I’ll come home again’? She might change her mind once she sees I’ll leave her if she treats me like this. She might, if she sees I mean it. And if she isn’t willing to negotiate… _The idea terrifies him._ If I can’t moderate our political stance, and change what the Blacks stand for, if I can’t be both a Black and an Auror … I could stop being a Black…_

Going back to the study, he sees that she has gone, and starts to put his schoolbooks into his satchel. _Trunk is still at Hogwarts, broomstick is in the Gryffindor locker, I have my wand, money, a change of clothes, what else, what else…_

He is just reaching for his Transfiguration text book, when… _What was that noise? Is someone coming?_

Fighting down panic, he sweeps everything off the desk and into his satchel with his wand. Swinging it over his shoulder, he pads back to the nursery as quietly as he can. Approaching the fireplace in the nursery, he pauses for a moment to listen for her or Kreacher’s movements over the sound of his pounding heart. Reaching for the floo powder, he flings it into the flames and whispers, “Headmaster Dumbledore’s Office, Hogwarts School.” _Come on, answer, you have to be there._

“Mr Black? Is everything all right?”

“Everything’s fine, Headmaster. There’s been a slight change of plans at home. Could I return to school now, rather than at the end of the Christmas break?”

Dumbledore regards him for a while. Mother has warned him that the Headmaster can pull thoughts out of his head, just as she is sometimes able to. Whatever he sees in there must meet with his approval, because he concedes, “Certainly, my boy. Give me a moment, and I’ll send a Portkey through the floo. It will take you to the Gryffindor dormitory – I believe that Remus is the only one in your year still here for the holidays.”

_The holidays have started already? Where has the time gone?_

“If you are considering what I believe you are, Sirius – if you intend to leave your family – you will need to find someone to take you in for the summer. You won’t be able to stay at the school forever. Think carefully.”

He’s already given it more thought than he’s intended. If he gives it any more, he’ll lose his nerve and talk himself out of it. “I’m not leaving my family.” _I won’t have to. She’ll change her mind. _“Please, Headmaster.” He hates having to beg.

A Portkey in the shape of a wooden ruler is duly passed through the flames. Sirius takes it, realising as he does so that he hasn’t had a chance to say goodbye to anyone or anything before he leaves Grimmauld Place. He wonders if he will ever be able to see it again.


	4. Christmas Holidays, 1996-97

“It has to be ‘willingly given’,” Lupin says. “Everything I read was clear on that.”

“I can assure you, even though they’ve been dead for decades, the flesh was ‘willingly given’ at the time.” Kreacher is raging in the corner, muttering at him furiously as he holds up the ear he severed from one of the house elf heads decorating the corridor. “Even Kreacher can’t wait until we do him, too. Isn’t that right, you disgusting, little toe‑rag?” Still the elf refuses to leave them, and Regulus tires of his muttering and banishes him into the basement with a wave of his wand.

“What was the good of that? Won’t he just be able to Apparate himself out?”

“Sirius never told you about the Black family dungeon, did he?” Lupin is horrified. “Oh come on, Lupin, we weren’t all sweetness and light. I’ll let him out again if he asks me nicely – which he won’t.” _He can rot there, for all of me. _Flipping the withered ear into the cauldron turns the potion from blue into a brilliant red.

The potion behaving as it should appears to calm Lupin down, his voice holding no disgust as he says, “I knew you weren’t all ‘sweetness and light’, but a dungeon?”

“Dungeon. That’s right. It’s not a torture chamber, Lupin. Merlin’s name, in Hogwarts they house students in them. Don’t look so shocked.”

“And you wonder why everybody found it so easy to believe that you and Sirius were Death Eaters, and followers of Voldemort.”

“I never wasted a lot of time worrying about what other people thought. In _my_ case, the people that mattered knew the truth. Pity the same couldn’t be said of Sirius’ so called friends.”

Lupin ignores the slap. “Then why does your mother’s portrait hate you nearly as much as it hates Sirius? Why isn’t Kreacher overjoyed to see you? Sirius was always telling me how you were the better son. That your mother was thrilled you’d joined the Death Eaters.”

_That sounds like the old witch – divide and conquer. She never told _me _she considered me the better son. Always rhapsodising about how fabulous Sirius was, how clever…_ He finds it heartbreakingly amusing that the older brother he’s always aspired to be exactly like grew up with the same insecurity. The same sense that he would never be good enough.

“I joined the Death Eaters to avenge Father. It was the only way to get around the masks and the cloaks and the secret identities. Managed to kill three of the four cowards that had attacked him. Was well on the way to tracking the fourth when someone noticed a pattern in the deaths, and I was suspected. The fourth coward was the bait in a trap set up for me. I managed to kill her, and then the ones who’d lain in wait sprung the trap and killed me. Before that, I did everything Mother wanted after Sirius ran off and left her helpless. I was twelve when I started attending Council.”

He would have done anything for the House of Black, once. People tried to keep him quiet ever since the news of the attack on their Father reached Hogwarts. Two of his housemates sneeringly said Antares Black got what was coming to him, and his Head of House punished _him_ for cursing them.

Then they got home, Mother tiredly greeted them, and he couldn’t stop roaring at her that he wanted Father to live, that she should _fix _him rather than make arrangements for his funeral. She lost all patience with him, and tricked him into swallowing his first dose of a powerful sedative to quell his rage. When he finally woke from the effects of the sedative Kreacher forced down his throat at regular intervals, he found that Father was dead, and Sirius was gone. But when Mother asked him – told him, really – to do his duty for the House of Black, he was eager to actually _do_ something to burn off the horrible anger that consumed him.

“When Sirius left, he didn’t tell any of us. Mother thought he’d been kidnapped or worse. She’d keyed the blood wards directly to the eldest Black son, so that as long as he was alive and thought of Grimmauld Place as his home, the protection spells would keep us safe. She knew he hadn’t been killed, because the wards didn’t pass directly onto me, as they should have. We couldn’t find him, because the protection spells at Hogwarts blocked all Mother’s scrying instruments, and our Uncle Alphard taught him two powerful Untraceable spells to keep him safe outside of school. When we couldn’t trace him, Mother decided she wasn’t taking any chances with our safety. She also needed an heir who would attend her once formal Council was convened, and with Sirius gone, that was to become my task. He hadn’t been old enough to attend the informal meetings, but was permitted because he was her heir.

“For me to attend in his stead, she had to elevate my status to eldest son and heir – something we couldn’t do easily without knowing what had happened to Sirius. Sirius had also taken her book on Blood Magic with him when he left. At the time, I thought he’d done it to spite her, but now I’m not so sure – it was never really something that interested him. All Mother’s notes on the charms that attuned this house to us were in it, too. As it was, he left, depriving her of her firstborn and heir, as well as all of her protection spells, and when she ran out of options, _I _was the one that paid for it.”

He can still remember her panic clearly. Father dead for less than a week, and then her eldest vanished. She was frantic, he was scared and then she dosed him again. “When I was finally _allowed _to wake up, Mother brewed a potion that would age me. She didn’t tell me that, though – just held it under my nose and told me to drink it. I was suspicious, ever since I’d been tricked into drinking the sedative when I’d first got home, so I made her _swear _it wouldn’t put me to sleep or hurt me.” She wept, apologised, petted him, and promised, _swore_, that he wouldn’t be hurt. “She lied.” He tried to sip it a little at a time, but she forced his head back and tipped the goblet up.

“I only drank a bit, and I could _feel _myself growing and stretching. It was horrific. It felt like the wards were inscribing themselves on my bones. I was so _angry_, that I flung the rest of the potion at her.” It was the first and only time he was deliberately disobedient, before he passed out from the pain. “Aged her too. Almost crippled her. I thought she was going to die. Remember wishing she had.” _She probably wished she had, too._ After Father died, there was some talk of Mother remarrying, and no shortage of offers. After he flung that goblet at her, she never left the house again and relied on him entirely to do her bidding in Council. “I still couldn’t believe she’d done that to me, and then she told me why. Said that she needed me to replace not only Father, but Sirius as well. Said that we might never see him again.”

He passed out aged twelve, and then woke again aged seventeen. He was suddenly taller than she, his voice was deeper than it had been earlier that afternoon, and he couldn’t move properly for the first two months afterward. But when he thought they might never see Sirius again, when he thought that Sirius had been kidnapped, was being tortured somewhere, or had in some other way sacrificed himself for the House of Black, he told himself that he, Regulus, could afford this relatively small inconvenience. That it was the least he could do. Then when he saw his brother, alive and well over the holiday – _I don’t want to think about that, I don’t feel that way anymore – _he vowed to kill Sirius himself.

Absently, he murmurs, “I don’t think she thought I was ever as clever as he was.”

“Few people were.”

“But _I_ was the one the Sorting Hat placed in Ravenclaw,” he says, realising even as he does that he must sound just as petulant as he did when he was eleven, with that awful hat falling past his ears, and blinding him. It told him he valued knowledge and learning, even though it was only so that people would talk about things with him the way they spoke with Sirius – grown up and adult, at three years older than himself. It didn’t matter what he said, people always laughed at him, calling him ‘adorable’ or ‘sweet’ whenever he said anything, rather than talking to him properly.

“And I can tell you, it’s no fun when you know you’re cleverer than most people, but you’re close to someone who’s cleverer or better or more talented than you. And no one will ever see what you’re capable of, because you’re forever being outshone by your older brother.”

“I can’t say I’ve ever felt like that.”

“How fortunate for you. Perhaps if you had, you’d have sympathised with Pettigrew and realised what a liability he’d been all along. Pettigrew certainly wasn’t stupid, but anybody would have looked it, compared to Sirius or Potter.”

Lupin ignores the bait again, and changes the subject. “So that’s why your mother’s portrait hates you?”

“That, and she wasn’t pleased I became a Death Eater, and follower of Voldemort. Didn’t like the idea of actively going out and torturing or killing Muggles – not that I was either, there’s no need to look at me like that. In her case, it was because she saw it as a waste of magic – why waste your time baiting Muggles when you could spend it more profitably thinking of ways to make Morgan Wilkes weep? Anyway. In the same year Voldemort met his end, I met mine. I’m almost certain Bella had something to do with it. Barty certainly did – he kept a close eye on my comings and goings at school, even though we were in different Houses.

“I don’t know what Mother tried in the five years between when I died and when she restored me. I think she tried to get Sirius out of Azkaban. Even if she believed him guilty, it was unlikely she’d have cared about random Muggles being blasted in the street when her son and heir and last hope of the continuation of the line was rotting in prison. Whatever happened, her efforts failed, and in the end, as I said, she gambled everything and worked her Dark Magic to restore me.”

_You won’t fail me, _she insisted, as he screamed his way back into the world, much as he had the first time he’d entered it, _You’ll help me restore the good Black name, see the line flourish again. Regulus, my darling, my only, my baby cat._ And that was when he realised that Sirius was right all along – their mother would only love them as long as they did as she wanted. As long as they furthered her ends. As long as they were her tools. He hates that memory. “And then I ran away.” Hates that his selfishness caused her to lose the will to live. “She died shortly afterwards.” Hates that it caused her to die.

But even ten years after the fact, he knows he will not change that decision, even if he can. He wonders if Sirius feels the same.


	5. Christmas Holidays, 1995-96

The corridor _reeks_ of blood. Full moon is still more than half a month away, but his senses of hearing, taste and smell are always stronger than those of a human’s, and right now, the scent is so powerful he is certain that if he extends his tongue, he can lick blood out of the air.

He is so dizzy under the assault of that savoury, metallic aroma – _human blood, the best kind – _that it takes him a while to realise that it is Sirius’. _Sweet Jesus…_ _Why, oh why, do people see fit to leave him alone in the house on his own? _The first day they moved in, nearly every magical implement in the parlour hurled itself at them. There are traps all over the house, some of them specifically keyed to respond to Sirius’ touch.

Anything can happen to Sirius when he is alone, and still people leave him by himself.

He said he could always leave the trip to the flat until after Christmas, but Sirius urged him out of the house as soon as they awoke that afternoon. After all, the sooner he leaves, the sooner he’ll be back and the sooner Sirius will be able to contribute to the cause in some way that isn’t cleaning, cooking, or keeping the twins out of trouble. It doesn’t help that Sirius’ natural inclination is to let Fred and George get into whatever trouble it is they want – watching them explode things is entertaining, if nothing else, and hearing Molly shout at someone else for a change doesn’t hurt.

And he was unable to refuse Sirius’ request to find and bring the books back as soon as he could. The suggestion itself improved Sirius’ mood a hundred‑fold. Sirius was making noises about getting the house into shape for Christmas, now that there were so many other guests, as Remus left. Remus himself isn’t too thrilled at the idea of so many other people in the house – he hopes to have Sirius to himself for their anniversary. Not that he’s made any plans.

_That’s if there’s anything of our relationship left that’s worth celebrating._

Molly and the children are probably visiting Arthur, leaving Sirius to do battle with the house alone. An entire corridor smells of his blood. There aren’t any marks, but Sirius was either bleeding heavily or has walked along this corridor several times for the scent to be so strong.

Dropping the books he took so much care to retrieve, Remus follows the strength of the scent, pelting toward Sirius.

“Sirius?”

He speaks quietly, even though he is long past the now sleeping portrait of Cassie Black. _What happened to the woman? _Sirius maintains she only died ten years ago. Ten years before _that_, boys at school were cutting out and collecting pictures of her appearing at her husband’s funeral from the articles in the Prophet.

“Sirius, where are you?”

It still made him ill – _That’s our best mate’s MOTHER – _but at the time he was preoccupied with the fact that girls at school were cutting out photos of Sirius, standing dutifully next to Cassiopeia Black at his father’s funeral, and sticking them in their schoolbooks. _That’s SICK_, James raged. It was probably the only time Lily looked the other way when James hexed students.

The house is massive enough for either of them to vanish into for hours on end if they truly intend to hide, but the number of rooms they opened up and cleaned to be habitable is only small. The sharp, pure smell is stronger as he nears the study.

“Sirius!”

He tries and fails to keep the alarm out of his voice. The study door is closed, but directly next to it, another door – one that he hasn’t noticed before – is propped open. The overpowering scent of blood is emanating from it. Drawing his wand, he pushes the door open, and staggers back as he sees Sirius kneeling on the floor, blood dripping from his fingers and hands.

“Sirius, what are you doing?” The other man looks stunned to see him so soon, and is so pale it is frightening. _How much blood has he lost?_ “What – Please tell me – Sirius, are you in pain?”

The silver eyes sparkle – for the first time in nearly six months, they are alight with some sort of inner fire – as Sirius smiles at him.

“Remus, come here. You have to see this.”

Stepping cautiously inside, not lowering his wand for an instant, he looks around the room, taking in hundreds of little bottles of blood set neatly into the wall – they are arrayed almost to the ceiling. And there are macabre little diagrams and runes painted around each one in blood. And then, worst of all, there are Sirius’ wounds.

“See this diagram? These Runes, here, and here.” Sirius points to a raw and bloody sketch on the floor of the room – it looks freshly painted. “If I add that to the diagrams around my phial, I can remove the security wards around Grimmauld Place. You know what that means? It means I don’t have to believe that this is home for the Order to use the house.”

Dumbledore and Moody examined the house, and the extensive relays of security charms, un‑plottable spells and blood wards. They all agree that as long as they use the house, there is nothing for it but for Sirius to keep telling himself, day after day, that this is home – not the little flat in Circe Square the two of them moved into after leaving school – but this house that reminds him everyday of the ideals and hopes it severed when he was younger.

_If you remove the security wards, will the Order still want to use the house?_ He can’t say that. Not yet.

“Sirius, is this all your blood?”

“No, of course not.” Sirius must be light‑headed, he is laughing softly. “Every one who was born Black has their blood in this room, in one of the phials. The blood on the floor, that’s mine.” Sirius’ eyes are glittering in the shadows in his face. _Silver. Shining silver, set in caves._ “See the sketch? How all the lines snap together? All I need to do is put that up around my phial,” Sirius points, and he follows his gaze to the phial labelled _Sirius M. Black_, in a heavy, Gothic script, “and the blood wards will come down. I’ve solved it.”

“ARE YOU OUT OF YOUR MIND?”

He knows that roar. Molly Weasley stands at the entrance to the study, hands on hips, and face already starting to turn purple. He can’t believe he hasn’t heard her coming back from the hospital – quite possibly the children are too subdued after seeing Arthur to do anything worth shouting at.

“You can’t be left alone for five minutes!” she continues, barely pausing for breath or an interjection from either of them. “Did you have the slightest inkling of what you were attempting? What would have happened if you’d failed? Or killed yourself? Or altered the wards to attack the rest of us? You thoughtless, stupid, inconsiderate - ”

Sirius’ face, which was practically glowing a moment ago, is shutting down muscle by muscle and reverting into the blank mask his mother taught him to wear in public. _How it must hurt, to be spoken to like that, to be spoken _over_ like that, to be dismissed as though you were just another disobedient child._ Despite the many problems his own mother and father had with one another, neither of them ever spoke to _him _in such a fashion.

“Molly,” he says firmly, but as politely as he can. “You must be worried about Arthur, and so must the children be. Why don’t you leave this to me?”

Sirius is still staring after her when Remus kicks the door shut, and pulls him into his arms. “Sirius,” he says softly. Sirius is trying to curl into a ball, probably a reflex from living as a dog, but the way Remus is holding him prevents that. “You didn’t plan to undo the ward, did you?”

He thinks it is true – Sirius hasn’t mentioned this room before, or indicated he knows how to undo or modify the wards that keep them all safe. Seeing the stack of Blood Magic books underneath the array of phials, he has the sense that Sirius wandered in to locate more research materials and… “Just got curious, and then took it personally the first time the ward dared to resist you.” _You never could back down from a challenge, could you?_

“I hate this. I’m _sick _of this. All I want is to alter the ward so that I don’t have to think of this wretched house as my home. All this time I’ve had to act like this is where I want to live, but people just order me about anyway. Molly. Moody. Dumbledore. All of them – none of them are polite, never act like I’m their host, and they’re my guest – just tramp through here as though they own the place, but _I’m_ the one that has to keep lying to myself, blocking out all memories of our flat and what it was like to live there.”

Dumbledore offered to keep Sirius’ memories of his _other _home – as though Grimmauld Place is his true home, and the flat across the nightclub in Circe Square is nothing more than a place to store his belongings – in his Penseive so Sirius won’t get confused, and endanger them all.

Sirius is shaking now, emotion coursing through his body again. “Why? Why should I keep doing it? Why can’t I change the bloody ward so I can at least have that peace? But no, Molly Weasley says I have to leave it, and has delegated Prefect Lupin to make sure I do. All I’m good for is being ordered around.”

“Sirius…”

“I wish we’d never come here. That I’d never offered this house as headquarters – I never imagined I’d have to live in it for us to be able to use it. I hate this place. We should have stayed away.”

“I wish we had too, Sirius.”

“I should have just left,” Sirius whispers against his chest, and he realises that Sirius is crying, and he is unable to do anything about it. “Like I did the first time I left here – just run away without saying anything to anybody, so they couldn’t stop me, or _reason_ with me, or trick me into staying _for my own good_. Run away so I could actually _do_ something to help, instead of standing by helplessly and watching the people I love be hurt.”

He is holding onto Sirius so tightly now it must be hurting both of them. “Don’t say that, Sirius. Please.” _I don’t know what I’d do if you left without telling me._ But that only makes Sirius cry harder, weeping into his chest and shaking so violently he is afraid the other man is coming apart in his arms, and he can’t keep Sirius safe, can’t keep Sirius whole, can’t keep Sirius from being hurt, even though just staying in this house is supposed to keep his lover safe.

Seeing that he isn’t getting anywhere with that, he changes the subject, moving Sirius gently into his lap, and telling him softly about the books he’s found, how they can get to work on a protection spell for Harry, one that wouldn’t require him to live at the home of his horrible aunt and uncle, see, Sirius, won’t that be nice?

Sirius has one hand fisted in Remus’ robes, and his broken, sobbing breathing calms, but he still doesn’t respond verbally to anything said to him. Settling Sirius more firmly into his lap, he Apparates them back to Sirius’ bedroom. “Wait here for me,” he beseeches, as he places Sirius onto his bed and goes back to his room to lock it.

When he Apparates back, he is surprised to find Sirius is sitting on the edge of the bed and removing his robe. “Is this what you wanted?” Sirius asks, sounding exhausted.

It wasn’t, but he isn’t going to tell Sirius that. Not when this is the first time since they have come to this house that Sirius has shown that he wants him. He wonders again how much blood Sirius has lost.

“Always,” he responds, removing his own clothing, allowing it to remain where it falls. Sirius’ hand reaches out for him as he approaches, and he sees that it is still bleeding sullenly. “First, let me - ”

He guides his wand along Sirius’ wounded hand, and his lover shivers and hisses as the cuts close, and as Remus feathers kisses over the healed flesh. _Safe, now, without the temptation of the blood._ As his kisses move further along Sirius’ arm, Sirius wraps his hand behind Remus’ neck to draw his face up to Sirius’ own.

He feints and reaches for the jar of cream under the bed when Sirius tries to kiss him. Sirius makes a soft sound of protest against his throat instead, as Remus dips his fingers in the cream, and transfers it into Sirius’ hand. Sirius’ expression is unreadable, as he works the cream between his fingers, warming it.

“Will you prepare yourself for me?” he asks, as he places his hand between Sirius’ legs and strokes them apart.

_Were you going to leave without saying anything to me, _is what he really wants to ask.The thought will not leave him. Coming back to the room to find Sirius getting ready for bed suggests that the answer is ‘no’, but he can’t make himself ask the question. One way he can be certain that Sirius still wants him, that Sirius isn’t simply tolerating him, is to see whether or not Sirius will continue to take the initiative.

“Remus, is something…” Sirius winces in pain. “Why won’t you do this for me?” He has almost always stretched Sirius personally before taking him, never relying on spells, or permitting Sirius to do it himself. The one or two times in the past Sirius attempted it, Remus pushed his hand away and told him no one could put anything in there but him. All of the times he did it, or on the rare occasions Sirius prepared him, there was kissing, or licking, or sucking as a distraction from the initial pain.

“I thought I might let you do some of the work, for a change.” He says it lightly, smiling down at Sirius, and tries to disguise his fear. _I need to know that you want this. Want me. You can’t leave without saying anything. You can’t._

“Why did you bring me here, then, if it’s too much work?” Sirius asks, not bothering to sit up to see what he is doing. He lies down on top of Sirius, kisses the frown forming on Sirius’ forehead, and then rolls them over so that Sirius can ride him. The expression on Sirius’ bloodless face is confused and exhausted, and it takes him longer than usual to find his balance.

“Is this because I said I was sick of being ordered around?” He tries to keep his face blank. It is sometimes frightening, how well Sirius knows him. Especially since he still feels as though he is stumbling in the dark without a clue, where knowing what to say around Sirius is concerned.

Sirius is not moving, sitting on his groin like dead weight, demanding, “I’m right, aren’t I?”

“I thought you might feel better if I let you - ”

“ – order you around?”

_No. It’s not like that. Just show me you want this, and that you’ll work for it, and that you’re not just putting up with me._

“Is that all right?” He reaches a hand up to trace Sirius’ face, stroking along the stark outline of his skull, still clearly discernible under too little flesh. Sirius makes an impatient noise, and looks away from him for a moment, pulling away from his hand, and starts to move his hips at last, bringing their cocks together and working them against one another. Remus shifts his hands to Sirius’ hips, stroking gently and using the same rhythm Sirius is using to rub himself against his cock. “Sirius?”

“Is this what you want?” Sirius asks again, as if he really believes Remus will want to change his answer now Sirius is straddling him and _moving_. He nods sharply, trying to keep from thrusting up and displacing Sirius. “If you want me to do this, don’t interfere.” Thinking is difficult with the way Sirius is grinding against him. With some effort, Sirius brings Remus’ hands away from his hips and places them on the headboard.

“What are you doing?” _This was a bad idea. You can’t ride me when you’re this weak if I can’t hold you. You’ll fall off._ Abruptly, he realises that something is binding his hands – either to one another, or to the headboard itself. “What did – _ah,_” Sirius grinds back against him again. “Don’t do that, Sirius. I don’t want - ”

“Relax, Remus.” Sirius is lifting himself off, and slipping from the bed.

Red rage obliterates everything else. “Don’t tell me to relax! What did you just do?” He struggles against the restraints, now fighting down panic. He can feel them tear at his wrists. “Sirius! What are you doing?”

“What does it look like? I’m dressing, and then I’m leaving.”

“_What?_ Come back this instant!”

Sirius _laughs_ at him, doing up the fastenings on his robe. “I don’t think so.”

God help him, he is still hard, and it _hurts_, and he can’t do anything about it. There is nothing touching his cock but air. Anger isn’t going to get him anywhere, clearly. He tries to keep his voice as patient as he can. “Sirius, why are - ”

“Why? Because I don’t want to do all the _work_, if the only reason you brought me up here was to distract me. Because you’re a patronising bastard. Because I’ve not been able to leave the house to do simple things like buying food, or books, or even walking in the fresh air. I’m stuck back here, unable to protect the people I love. Do you have any idea how two‑faced I felt every time Dumbledore made me write to Harry, telling him to stay out of trouble? If I had my way, I’d help him _find _trouble, and defeat it once and for all. I have the same trouble telling Buckbeak he needs to stay inside and eat rats, instead of being allowed out to hunt for himself.”

Sirius’ calm recitation of everything that is bothering him is a thousand times worse than the explosion he braced himself for. He tries to Apparate out of the restraints and can’t. He can’t do anything but follow his lover with his eyes as Sirius moves about the room, searching for one of his boots, the other dangling from his hand.

“I’m dismissed or ignored by newcomers to an Order that took the lives of two of my best friends, and twelve years of my own. And you don’t understand at all, do you, how humiliating this is for me, how pathetic I feel, how completely useless? This, right now, what I’ve done to you, _this_ is what it feels like – being tied down, unable to get free, unable to help yourself. You can stay there for all of me, until you realise that this is how helpless I feel _every single day,_ Remus. This is what I’ve had to live with since I got here.”

“Sirius, this isn’t funny.” Sirius laughs again. “Let me up and we can talk about this.” The cords fight back as he twists against them. There is a limit to how much his arms can bend. Perhaps he can turn around and bite through the cords?

“I tried to talk about it before, and you just brought me up here. Was it supposed to be my reward for being a good boy and doing what Molly told me to?”

“Sirius, please…”

Sirius flings the boot at him. “_Shut up!_” It bounces loudly but harmlessly off the wall and onto the floor.

This is the explosion, at last. It is almost a welcome relief when it comes, and Sirius’ expression is no longer careful or guarded. It is one he knows all too well – _fight or flight._ Sirius is either going to come back to the bed, unbind him and apologise, or whatever he is about to say or do next will be brutal.

“I should leave the door open. Then you’d know what true helplessness is. But I can’t bear to even _look _at you right now.”

The door slams, and he is alone.

~~*~~

Sirius has his back to him, painting something next to one of the phials on the wall. He is frowning in concentration, once more completely absorbed in the challenge before him. That expression – of complete and perfect concentration – once belonged to him. It used to be that Sirius only ever looked at _him_ like that. There were mornings – _there will be those mornings again, there should be – _when he woke up to Sirius gazing down at him with that expression, totally intent on how to please him and oblivious to the rest of the world.

_You loved me once,_ he thinks with absolute certainty, watching Sirius glare at the runes. And now, as far as their relationship is concerned, Sirius has the attention span of a puffskein. Either that, or Sirius intended to leave him tied to the bed for much longer. The frown lifts as Sirius appears to reach a decision, and completes the diagram he is constructing. He tenses for an instant, waiting for the house to fall down around them, and when it doesn’t, lets out a sigh.

“That was cruel.” Sirius doesn’t turn around, occupying himself instead with stacking the books he’s been using to one side, and clearing up his tools. He feels defeated – completely exhausted. “Can I come in?” he asks, more loudly.

At that, Sirius finally turns around and stares at him, as though seeing or hearing him for the first time. He feels like shit – his hair must look worse than James’ ever did, his clothing is rucked, his wrists are raw and scraped and he is fairly sure his eyes are red.

“Of course you can come in,” Sirius says. “Are you – Can I – ” All signs of anger on Sirius’ face have gone. “Are you all right?”

“You scared me, Sirius. I thought you were going to force me.” Sirius looks appalled. “And then you left me there, and I wasn’t sure which was worse. I’m sorry. I’m sorry I haven’t taken you seriously.” He reaches out to Sirius, and Sirius steps into his embrace without hesitation. “I knew you hated it, hated being here, but when you tied – When you – ” He can’t make himself say it. “When you did what you did just now, it became clear how awful this must be for you. I hated it.”

_And there was a pretty good chance you’d come back to release me, but… I haven’t been doing anything to get you out of here, have I?_ He strokes Sirius’ back gently. _I saw you change the ward. Were you so angry with me that you would have left without saying anything if I hadn’t come here to find you? _He can’t bear to think of that, now. All he can think is that he has to convince Sirius to stay with him – whether it is here or their old flat or… It doesn’t matter, where.

One arm is wrapped around Sirius’ waist, holding him close, trying to keep him forever, and Sirius is still against him, allowing himself to be kept close. “Being trapped up here,” he taps at Sirius’ head, but the movement changes into a stroking motion along the length of his hair, all the way down to his ribs now, and back up again, “must be worse than anything. So don’t worry about the wards. Change them. If anybody asks me, I’ll lie.”

“You shouldn’t have to lie for me,” Sirius says, finally winding his arms around him.

“No, I - ”

“Don’t, Remus. You always hated doing it, you shouldn’t have to keep doing it now.” Sirius sighs, resting his face against Remus’ throat and saying softly, sadly, “I’ve altered the ward – made it stronger, so that should keep everybody happy. But it doesn’t have to interfere with my thoughts anymore. It’s a very powerful, Dark Spell. As long as I’m within the walls of this house, we’re still safe, and untraceable. I have to _be _here, but I don’t have to _live _here.”

_But how can you leave, if the house can’t be used unless you’re in it?_ This thought gives him hope – Sirius wasn’t planning to run away again. “So this isn’t home anymore?”

“Home is anywhere you are, Remus.” He fights down the hope that is spreading through him. _I thought this would be enough, but it isn’t. _As pathetic as it is, he doesn’t think he’ll ever get tired of hearing Sirius say things like that. When Sirius does say things like that, he feels far from pathetic. But it is never enough. _Why can I never be certain?_

Sirius pulls away slightly, and takes his torn wrists into his hands. “I – You made me so angry, and I wanted to get away from you before I hurt you. Hurt you more. Didn’t want you following after me.” Sirius strokes his fingers over the torn flesh, healing it wandlessly, and lifts his hands to his lips to be kissed, smiling as he returns the gesture Remus made earlier.

Sirius can wound without his wand as easily as he can heal. _Dark Spells, that tear, and break and hurt, so like the spells that heal, restore and mend. _He always forgets that just as Sirius can hurt as easily as he can heal, his seemingly boundless capacity for love is coupled with an equally large capacity for hatred. He doesn’t doubt that Sirius has hated him at times almost as much as he has loved him at others. _But what do you feel now?_

“Risky, chewing yourself free. Didn’t they ever teach you werewolf bites transmitted the Curse?”

“I must have missed that lesson,” he replies solemnly. “Luckily, I was already a werewolf when I bit myself, or I might have turned myself into one.”

Sirius laughs, and they lean in toward one another, resting their foreheads together. The easiest way to diffuse Sirius, he has learned, is to make him laugh. It was never as easy for him to do that as it was for James, but then he doesn’t have a steady stream of Slytherins to hex for Sirius’ entertainment. _When is Snape coming around again?_ He tells himself the two thoughts are unrelated.

Softly, Sirius asks, “Did you really think letting me control the rhythm at which we fucked would keep me quiet about being locked up in this house?” He starts to say something in his defence, when Sirius continues, “Being locked up here isn’t even the worst of it. The worst of it is when I start thinking about whether it was worth running away the first time. What have I really achieved? Lily and James died anyway, Harry still can’t live with me, Wormtail’s still alive, and Voldemort’s still hurting the people I love. Could I have done more good and less harm if I’d stayed here, and tried to influence my mother to use the Black name to defeat Voldemort?”

He can think of nothing to say, and it appears that Sirius isn’t really interested in what he thinks, anyway. “Can I see the books you found? You know, it occurred to me that we might be thinking about this the wrong way. We’ll still have to read everything we have about the Resurrection Spell, but I’m almost certain the link is more of a mental thing than - ” Remus lets this wash over him, because Sirius has moved on from the words he truly wants. _He said that home was with me, wherever I was. He said that._

By evening, they are just words again, and have lost all meaning.  



	6. Christmas Holidays, 1976-77

Landing on his knees in the Gryffindor common room, he flings his satchel free of his shoulder and scrambles toward the sixth year bathrooms. Running inside and locking it, he vomits into the sink, stomach muscles cramping as he tries to bring up everything so he won’t go through this again later in the day. _I’m safe here. She can’t track me at Hogwarts._ For the first time in his school life, he is grateful for the powerful magic woven through the very foundation stones of the school.

The nausea subsides as he breathes deeply through his nose, and for a moment, he concentrates on his reflection, on smoothing the anxiety out of his face. _I haven’t run away. I haven’t. I just need something to bargain with. I’ll go back if she’s willing to talk._ The enormity of what he’s done is only now beginning to catch up to him. _There’s only Regulus left. I should have brought him with me. She’ll use him, now._

He can hear the portrait swinging open – it is amazing how far sound carries when Gryffindor Tower isn’t filled with chatter – and he quickly rinses his mouth and washes his face. Checking his watch, he can see the hand marked with his name pointing to ‘Eat! Or you’ll waste away to nothing’, but he really doesn’t have the appetite.

“That had better not be you in there, Weasley. I don’t care if you _are_ in my own House; if I catch you in our bathroom again, I _will _take points.” He is just reaching for the door when he hears _Alohamora_ on the other side, and he dodges aside before it opens onto his face. “Padfoot!” Remus looks stunned to see him there.

“Hello, Moony. You were expecting Weasley, perhaps?”

Remus rolls his eyes. “His mother’s pregnant with twins, so he’s been made to stay at school for the holidays. Was driving her crazy, having prank wars with his brother. He’s been strolling up to use our toilets all holidays. I can’t fathom why. Caught him trying to remove one of the seats.”

“What for?”

“I don’t bloody know!” Remus says exasperatedly, and then he is peering at him concernedly.

To avoid that concerned look, he pushes past Remus and leads the way back to their dormitory. Remus knows why he was called home, but won’t bring the matter up until – _unless_ – he himself does.

“Are you all right? You look very pale. Do you want to go and see Madam Pomfrey?”

“What time is it?”

“It’s pretty late in the evening.” Remus looks as though he is trying to think of a way to ask him if he is all right, without using the words ‘apart from your father being dead’. “You’re back early,” is what he settles for, as they enter their dormitory.

“Yes. There was some trouble at home.” He chooses his words carefully, hoping Remus won’t notice. “I might not be going back for a while.” _She’ll let me be an Auror. She will._ If only he didn’t feel like he is trying desperately to convince himself…

“I see,” Remus says slowly, to indicate that he doesn’t see at all. “You’re spending the holidays here, then? That sounds bloody miserable, Padfoot.”

“So it’s all right for you to spend the holidays here alone, but not for me to spend it here with you?”

“Only Christmas. I was planning to go to London for New Year’s, but if you’re going to be here - ”

“London? You never said anything to me about com- _going_ to London for New Year’s.”

“There’s this bar in London just off Music Alley that plays amazing jazz. I’d stay longer if the full moon wasn’t right in the middle of the holiday, or if I could afford to, but I’d planned to go on New Year’s Eve. The owner – his name’s Alfred Noire and he’s lovely – is Wizarding, but anyone can get in, and it’s all Muggle music. So I wasn’t sure you’d have wanted to go – it’s not really the sort of thing you ever seemed interested in.”

_Not the sort of thing I was ever really… _Abruptly he realises that he can’t maintain this false levity anymore. _Why am I wittering on about Muggle music when Father’s dead? _And to his shame and horror, his studied expression crumples, and he is crying, and worst of all, Remus can _see_ him, and all he can think is how grateful he is that it is only Remus and not James who sees him like this.

“I want to be an Auror, Moony.” He doesn’t know where that comes from. It certainly isn’t new information, as far as Remus is concerned. “I want to find the people who attacked my father because the Ministry won’t. My father, they killed him, because - ” his voice cracks, and he has to stop to breathe before he can go on. “Because he refused to join Malfoy and Lestrange and dedicate our house to Voldemort.” He collapses onto his bed.

“We’re all so sorry, Padfoot.” He stares down at his hands, which are shaking uncontrollably. Remus crouches next to the bed, so close that when he looks up, he can see his face under the shadow of his fringe. “If it makes you feel any better, you could take comfort from knowing he died defying Voldemort. That was a very brave thing to do.”

“But it _wasn’t_ brave, Moony, it _wasn’t._ How can it be bravery when the only reason you didn’t agree to support Voldemort was to spite the Malfoys, and not because of all the awful things he does? Because that was why, Moony. That was why they tried to kill him – because when Malfoy and Wilkes came to our house, Mother and Father laughed at them until they left. He - ” _Oh no_.

He can’t stop crying, and now he is barely able to speak, and again he is grateful that it is Remus here and not James, but this time it is because James would probably make an inappropriate comment or joke that would make him laugh, while doing nothing to mend the agonising tear that has materialised inside him. James would never pull his head down onto his shoulder, or wrap his arms around him, or rock him slowly in his arms as if he was a child, as Remus is doing now. For the first time in his life, it doesn’t matter that someone has seen through him, seen into the heart of the weakness and uncertainty he tries so hard to hide.

“Is it still brave if you do something good, but do it only for yourself?”

“He didn’t do it for himself, Padfoot. He did it for all of you – your mother, you and Regulus.”

“Was that any reason worth dying for? Death Eaters went after James’ uncle because he’d managed to get the Ministry to allow Muggles into Diagon Alley unaccompanied. They killed Amelia Bones’ mother and father because they refused to support a law allowing spells to be tested on Muggles. Compared to all of that, what did my father die _for_?” _Everything my family stands for is so selfish and self‑serving…I don’t know if I can be a part of that, anymore…_

“Your father didn’t do anything wrong, Sirius.”

_But he didn’t do anything _right_, either. There was so much more he could have used his power for. _“I want to be an Auror,” he says again. It is a mantra now.

“You will be one, Padfoot. You’re the only person who got more OWLs than Prongs or I. They can’t refuse you.”

“They already have. Said my family was all Dark Magic. Said I’d be wasting my time.” It is as if a boil has been lanced, and all of the pain he’s kept inside is gushing out. “They’re not going to investigate Father’s death. That’ll probably be a waste of time, too, and they’ll be pleased. One less Dark Wizard to worry about. So the Aurors are happy, the other Dark Wizards are happy, but they’re both supposed to be on different sides, and where does that leave me?”

“It doesn’t make _you _a Dark Wizard, Padfoot. _Sirius_. For whatever reason your father was attacked, despite what the Department of Magical Law Enforcement may feel about anything, he didn’t deserve to die.” Remus removes one of his arms from his shoulders to wipe at the tear tracks on his face. “No one does. Your father wasn’t a bad person. His death and the Ministry’s refusal to investigate don’t make the life he lived worthless, and it doesn’t make him any less as a man. You can still love him, and honour his memory, but not want to be like him.”

His smile is watery when he forces it, but it is there. “Thanks, Moony.”

~~*~~

“Hullo Weasley, what are you doing in here?” William Weasley spins around in shock. Remus might have seen him sobbing and wailing, but as far as everybody else is concerned, he is still Sirius Black – in complete control of himself, and afraid of nothing. “I want to change for bed. That means you need to get out before I hex you. Or I could let Remus catch you, and you’ll lose points for our House, and then I’ll have to come after you and hex you for that, too.”

Weasley’s jaw is most of the way to the floor, but he rallies, “He’d take points off you for hexing me.”

_Moony wouldn’t dare._ “Then I’d have to find you and hex you again.” _Brat._ “What are you doing up here, anyway?”

Weasley’s freckly face splits almost in two with a grin. “Charlie dared me to send home a Hogwarts toilet seat for Christmas. But he said it wouldn’t count unless it was from the seventh year bogs.”

“This is the sixth year bathroom, you fool. You can’t be trusted to do anything correctly.” _Why the seventh year bathroom?_ _Aren’t they all the same? Maybe they’re not? I’ve not seen the seventh year bathroom… What’s so bloody special about their toilet seats?_ Weasley has his full attention, anyway. “Follow me.”

He stacks his nightshirt and face flannel on one of the towel racks, and yanks the door open. To see Remus standing directly in his path, shaking his head and admonishing, “Padfoot, Padfoot, Padfoot. No good can come of this.”

Of _course _Remus has heard every word inside if he’s been standing this close to the door. In truth, he’ll have been able to hear them from the other side of the dorm, and has probably only come this close to let Sirius know that _he _knows. Before he can open his mouth, Remus finishes, “You’ve got fifteen minutes. Any longer, and I’ll find McGonagall and tell her you’re back.” This is a far worse threat than House points. He isn’t ready to deal with McGonagall yet.

“Fifteen. I promise,” he whispers. Remus smiles and conceals himself in the shadows, so the first year won’t think he has his Prefect’s permission to break the rules. “Come on, Weasley!”

~~*~~

_Mischief managed,_ he thinks as they make their way to the first year dormitory, prize in hand. In Weasley’s hand, at any rate. He certainly isn’t going to touch the thing.

“Sending it off home first thing tomorrow, is it?” He feels much better now, having diverted his other thoughts with this attempt at theft from the seventh years.

“Nah, I’m giving it to Errol to take home tonight. It’s got to make it in time for Christmas.” It occurs to him that it might even be Christmas Eve – he has entirely lost track of time.

“You’re going to make one owl carry a toilet seat all the way home? It’s going to arrive half dead! Where _is_ home, anyway?”

“My family’s near Stoat’s Head.”

_Why does that sound familiar? _He must have been around four years old, but he remembers it clearly, because it was the first large family gathering they attended after Regulus was born. Regulus had just started toddling and speaking a few words. “Puppy!” he’d called after Sirius, until Mother admonished him, and told him he couldn’t refer to a senior by his pet name. It continues to annoy Regulus no end that Sirius can call him by his baby name, and Regulus can’t do the same. _Was it a wedding? _

“Stoat’s Head? Your mother wasn’t a Prewett was she? Molly Prewett?”

“No, she’s a Weasley,” William says earnestly. Sirius wonders if he is being made fun of, and then decides to let it go. “Some of my cousins are Prewetts, though.”

_So we’re related – no wonder you’re not on the tapestry, with a surname like ‘Weasley’. _He tells himself he should talk to Weasley later on. There is a good chance he himself may not be on the tapestry much longer.

“Right, well if you’re off to the Owlery, you’re on your own. I’m going to bed.” _What is the time, anyway?_

“What’s this about the Owlery?” He recognises Remus’ voice, and doesn’t jump in fear as Weasley does. It _is _still a surprise to realise the other boy has tracked them so silently. “Weasley,” Remus says sternly, pretending he can’t see the toilet seat the shaking first year is hiding behind his scrawny frame. “You’re to go straight back to bed.” Weasley squeaks something that might be in the affirmative, and scarpers. Turning back to him, Remus enquires, “So?”

“What do you mean, so?”

“What are the seventh year toilets like? Is it worth slogging through sixth year revision, swotting for NEWTs and hanging about for another year?”

“You mean would the seventh year bathroom make up for finishing school since you’re a werewolf, I’m a Dark Wizard and neither of us will be admitted into the Auror Academy regardless of how hard we work next year?”

“I didn’t say it quite like that, but yes.”

He stretches, looking in the direction Weasley has gone and grins. “No, not really,” he admits anti‑climatically, letting his face relax into its usual expression. “Right. I’m getting changed, and then I’m going to bed.” Remus is looking at him strangely. “What?”

“I just noticed it now. Did you know how much nicer you are when you’re not pretending you know everything?”

“I don’t _pretend _to know everything, Moony. I certainly don’t do it to be _nicer_.” He does it to stop others sensing his uncertainty. ‘Nice’ has never been a priority. Nausea rises inside him again, as Remus looks at him knowingly.

“No, I don’t mean kinder – although you are. I meant you _look _nicer, when you’re not sneering at everything.” Fear that Remus is going to realise that all his arrogance and self‑assurance is an act forces him to adopt his Impatient Face – one that he usually reserves for Regulus. _What are you talking about, and what does it matter. _They have reached the sixth year bathrooms, and are standing outside the entry. “Go on and get changed, then,” Remus says, giving up.

As he returns to the dorm, he hears Remus ask, “Do you want to come to London with me for New Year’s Eve?”

He doubts Mother will respond favourably to being asked for permission to go back to his hometown for a holiday. But he doesn’t think it should be too difficult getting permission to leave the school. There are any number of relatives he met at the funeral, who he hasn’t seen in years. Perhaps one of them will invite him to London for the New Year, given the right persuasion. _Andromeda, maybe_, he thinks as he hangs his formal robe up. “I do,” he replies, telling himself he’ll worry about permission later.

He is halfway to climbing into bed when Remus lays a hand on his wrist, arresting him. “The house elves wouldn’t have expected you back. Your sheets will be freezing. Do you want to sleep in my bed?”

“No, I’ll be fine.”

Remus looks annoyed, and goes back to his bed, muttering under his breath loudly enough for him to hear, “Why must you always be such a stubborn…” Tearing the sheets off his bed, Remus returns, spreading them out over Sirius. They smell of burned cotton, singed by one of the warming pans that the house elves never remember to remove in time.

The scent of smouldering cloth reminds him of the funeral.

_“I’m the last of us, then,” Father’s brother, Alphard, said sadly. “Both Cepheus and Antares dead – it isn’t right. I can’t be the first of the three of us to be born, _and _the last to die.”_ He wonders if his uncle will give him permission to leave school for a day. He hardly ever saw him, growing up. For some reason, he then wonders whether he or Regulus will die first, and suddenly, the warmth from the sheets isn’t enough and he is shaking again.

_If I’m going to be shivering anyway, there’s no point switching sheets. _“Are you sure about this, Moony? I don’t want you to be cold.”

“I won’t be cold,” Remus says, before slipping under the sheets next to him. “Don’t look at me like that – you’ve done the same for me in the shack to keep me warm when I was cold.”

But it is different when Remus is the one offering kindness, with the expectation that he accept it. It is the same with the invitation to go to London – if Remus truly wants to spend New Year’s Eve with him, rather than just asking him out of pity, why didn’t he say anything before the holidays started? He or James or Peter were usually the ones who invited Remus to come away with them for the holidays so that Remus wouldn’t have to deal with his parents fighting over him. _I never asked anybody for anything in my life_. _But was that because my family always provided me with whatever it was I required before I had to ask for it?_ He can’t be certain.

All he knows, with sudden clarity, is that nothing will ever be the same again, that he will have to learn to accept help from his friends and his equals if he truly leaves his family, because he will have nothing if he leaves the House of Black – no wealth, no name, no prestige…_and no reputation – that’s why I’m leaving, isn’t it? Not a Black anymore, but it must mean something to be Sirius. To be me. I must be able to do something useful without their power and influence. _He is shaking so hard, he can’t stop even though Remus is holding him close.

“It’s not just the cold, Moony,” he says as the lights are extinguished, and Remus tightens the circle of his arms.

“I’m not doing this just to keep you warm, Padfoot,” Remus replies.


	7. Christmas Holidays, 1996-97

The potion is sending out ripples of darkness through the brilliant red, the roiling motion spreading the colour throughout, and soon, all of the liquid in the cauldron is a uniform deep, dark red. Lupin holds one of the phials he’s fetched from upstairs over the surface of the potion, waiting for the right moment.

“Can I try something?” he asks. The way Lupin reacts, anyone would think he’s tried to tip the potion up before it is done. “No, it’s just… I need to see if…” Before Lupin can react, he lets the blood that has collected in his hand – collected from a nick he’s just given himself – fall into the liquid.

“_What are you - _” Lupin slaps his hand away, snarling “Are you insane? This could ruin everything!”

He lifts his wounded hand up to his lips and sucks at the cut. “But it hasn’t. See?” Glittering, white, diamond‑like brightness is breaking through the deep red. “It’s working.” He sighs. “It’s working because he never stopped hating me.”

“Sirius didn’t hate you,” Lupin lies.

“Didn’t he? He might not have told _you_ about it, but he did. I threatened to kill him, once.”

“That doesn’t mean he - ”

“Oh, he did. It was blood from his phial Mother used to restore me. There’s a room full of blood upstairs, and he was the only one she could be certain hated me enough for the spell to catch.” Lupin is quiet again, watching the spots of light come to the surface and burst – like bubbles of air in boiling water. “Ever since I came back, I’ve been able to see some of his thoughts. Or feel some of his emotions, really. I don’t think he ever gave me much thought until he was made to live in this house again. I could feel his hatred, as if it were something I could reach out and touch – it felt that real.”

“Did you still hate him, too?”

“I did hate him, once. I don’t anymore. It only needs to go in one direction for the spell to work.”

“I know that, but if you don’t hate him anymore, why won’t you stay to see this out?”

“Oh please, Lupin. As if you want me here anyway. The moment he comes back, you’ll want to drag him off to a secluded corner, and I’ll only be in the way.”

Lupin smiles slightly, admitting, “That’s…only partially true.”

“You promised you wouldn’t give me away to anybody, and that includes him.” Lupin looks unconvinced. “I have my own reasons for not wanting to stay. I didn’t go into hiding with the fervent hope that my brother might need me someday. I do have a life of my own – Don’t _look _at me like that,” he yells, suddenly furious and unable to say why. “Sirius put being an Auror over his family twenty years ago – at least I came with you this far. I could have just told you to sod off.”

“You’re afraid _he’ll _tell _you _to sod off, and you don’t want to give him the opportunity.” The potion’s colour still fills the basement with a dull, red glow, so Lupin won’t be able to discern his blush, but there it is. “That’s it, isn’t it. You are so much like him, terrified of asking for help, pretending you don’t need anything because you’re afraid of being denied. Black, I honestly don’t know which of the two of you I pity more.”

“It won’t be the first time he tells me to sod off. I think it was the Easter holidays in my second year, when it became clear he was never coming back. He was even staying with the Potters rather than at school for the break. Stella Mira brought his letter to us, telling us he wanted to do more than further the glories of the House of Black, and Mother lost all reason. It didn’t matter that he’d always been her favourite before – she blasted him off the family tree, and then went through the house and blew up all his portraits, went through his room in the nursery and smashed everything. I got home from meeting with one of the other Houses – might have been the Notts, total waste of time, whoever it was – and found her in front of one of his pictures in the nursery, on the floor crying. I was in the portrait too, and I wouldn’t move aside to let her blast him.”

“The one we used? The one of him at the age of seven?”

“Yes. It was the only one left.” He saved that portrait when he left Grimmauld Place the last time. Taking it out this afternoon, and trying to coax the painted Sirius out so they could use the painting in this spell required convincing four‑year‑old painted Regulus that they meant his brother no harm. Portrait Regulus demanded to know who he was before fetching Portrait Sirius from wherever he was hiding.

When Portrait Sirius appeared as well, and called out “Father? Is that you?” Regulus wanted to cry. Until Portrait Regulus said, “That’s not father, stupid! It’s Uncle Cepheus!” And then he started to laugh, and couldn’t stop. _I always hated it when people laughed at what I said, and I did it to myself._ Which only made him laugh harder, and the look of sheer outrage on his younger self’s scowling, painted face hadn’t helped.

The entire cauldron is boiling with light now, chasing the last vestiges of deep red away. _It’s working. We’ve done it._

“I should - ”

“You should stay,” Lupin says firmly, as though he means to stand in Regulus’ way. “You should, but I know better than to try and force a Black to accept pity or help he doesn’t want.” Lupin stops talking, mercifully. “One day, you really must put the mirror you stole to the purpose it was stolen for.”

“It’s already served that purpose,” he says, wanting nothing more than to be gone.

He walks up the stairs, toward the main door, telling himself he isn’t running. _He’ll work it out. He will. And if he cares at all, he’ll try to contact me this time. The last time I tried to talk to him_… he pushes the memory aside, unwilling to examine it or the emotions behind it.

Lupin is probably right – his older brother and he himself have always been too stubborn and proud to ask one other for anything. Opening the door, he can hear the church bell – _We three, kings of Orient are – _striking midnight. It must be – _Bearing gifts we traverse afar – _Christmas now. There are still carollers – _Field and fountain, moor and mountain – _making their way down the street – _Following yonder star – _approaching Number Twelve.

Letting the door swing slowly shut – _O star of wonder, star of light – _he makes his away across to the park to Apparate.


	8. Christmas Holidays, 1995-96

  
Even with the potion, the transformation will leave his muscles cramping for most of the day. It is worth it, though, not to have to worry about breaking out of the room and hurting someone. Worth it to sleep next to Sirius, even if it _is_ as a wolf, and not have to worry about what everybody else might think. It doesn’t matter that Sirius no longer transforms. As long as the rest of the house guests _think _that the Grim is keeping him company during the full moon, they won’t question too closely why it is usually well after moonset that Sirius emerges from the room they share on full moon nights.

Sleeping in separate rooms – Sirius insists on it, because you never know when someone will come banging on your door to wake you up – is the first thing he will change about their living arrangements, if he has his way. He wants to be able to watch Sirius sleep more often. Human‑shaped.

As a boy, Sirius looked so much _better _when he slept – sweeter, younger and more beautiful than awake – and it took him months to work out why. Sirius’s face when he was asleep was completely unguarded – unable to maintain the false pride and self‑assurance he normally wore. Even now, at past thirty, he looks so heart‑wrenchingly _young _as he sleeps. Moony slips off the bed and settles himself on the floor so he can see Sirius better, reluctant to wake him even though moonset will be soon.

Reluctant, because it is the last day of the holidays, they still haven’t heard anything from Dumbledore, and Sirius’ temper is becoming worse. After poring over all of the books on Blood Magic in the house – and there are so _many _of them – they researched the mental link between Harry and Voldemort. It became obvious very quickly that the blood link can’t be dismantled unless they have both Harry and Voldemort to work on. _All that time wasted, reading up on those resurrection spells._

Instead, Sirius suggested there should be some way of blocking Harry’s mind from Voldemort’s. Remus knows Dumbledore is an expert in the field of Soul and Memory Magic, and added that perhaps Dumbledore could teach Harry how to protect himself – if any protection is available, surely he will be the one to know. This will also give Harry the contact with the Headmaster he wants.

And for a full, glorious week, Sirius smiled and laughed and was _happy_. Christmas, even though it meant less to his pure‑blood lover than it did to him, was wonderful. They had a solution, and Pigwidgeon – who nominally belongs to the Weasleys, but does everything Sirius asks anyway – carried their letter to the Headmaster before Christmas. Then they waited.

And now, one day before the children have to be returned to school, they continue to wait. When Sirius awakes, the peaceful expression he wears in his sleep will give way to the despair or fury that he seems to display more often and more openly of late. _My black dog_, was how Winston Churchill referred to his depressive condition, and Sirius – Remus’ own black dog – embodies depression and rage, especially when human.

“Remus?” Of the four of them, only Sirius referred to his wolf shape by both names. Sirius is the only person who understands that regardless of whether he is wolf‑shaped or human‑shaped, Remus wants all of the same things. Sirius rolls up into a sitting position on the bed, rubbing at his face. “Do you want to come up here?” _Of course I do_. He leaps up onto the bed, next to where Sirius is sitting, lying down and placing his head on Sirius’ lap to be stroked. He can sense Sirius grinning, and a moment later, Sirius is rubbing behind his ears.

“What were you doing on the floor? Did I kick you?” _No. I wanted to see you._ There is no way to tell Sirius that when he is wolf‑shaped, and he tries to avoid licking Sirius’ face when he smells as strongly of alcohol as he does now. Besides which, his body is starting to tremble. Folding himself forward, Sirius drops a kiss between his eyes, and braces his arms around him as the moon sets, in all its excruciating slowness.

~~*~~

Soft knocking on the door brings him out of his doze.

“Who is it?” It is well after lunch, but he isn’t expecting anybody to bother him today. It is his turn to shepherd the children to school tomorrow, and he and Sirius have put it about that he needs to rest. Perhaps someone saw Sirius leave to forage breakfast for both of them and decided they required him immediately?

“It’s me. Sirius.” Opening the door as little as possible, Sirius slips into the room with a change of clothes, salves and breakfast.

“This is your house, Sirius. I’m your guest. You don’t have to knock for me.”

“I didn’t invite you over for tea, Remus. I invited you to live with me. You’re not quite the same kind of guest as the rest of the Order, and this is your room.” Putting his bundle down, Sirius walks over to him and kisses him. “How do you feel?”

“Much better now you’re back.” He winces, more from the taste of Sirius than from the pain of cramping limbs. He shifts his balance, turning towards the food Sirius has brought. It doesn’t matter that the tea Sirius is pouring is strong enough to make him more aware of the pain he is in. _Breakfast first, then the world_. “You never did, you know. Invite me to spend the rest of my life with you.”

“I must have,” Sirius replies absently, helping himself to toast. When he doesn’t say anything, Sirius turns back to him asking, “I never asked you?”

“I asked you the first time. You bough the flat with the money Alphard left you, but I was the one who did the asking.” He takes a sip of the tea. “The second time, when you came back to me, you moved back in when I asked you to.” Sirius is frowning, and pouring tea for himself. “And this time, you said you needed me to help you get past some of the defences and security wards and that it would only take a few days. Then I was helping you move your things in, you were helping me move my things in, and five months later, we’re still here. But you never asked me.” Sirius looks surprised, still. “I don’t know why you find it so difficult to believe. I’ve always been the one to do all the asking. The one to tell you what I want, to tell you that it’s _you _I want. You’ve always pretended you didn’t need anybody, and refused to ask anybody for anything.”

Instead of exploding as he expects, as he half hopes, Sirius sets his tea things on the bedside table, and calmly says, “I don’t ask for anything, Remus, but I’ve never denied you anything you asked of me. I thought that’s how you wanted it, and it’s been that way for so long.”

“It used to be all right. But everything’s changed now, Sirius. It’s not enough, anymore.”

“Not enough for what?”

“For me to know you want this.” Even as he says it, he is certain of what Sirius’ response will be. Every time he asked the question, Sirius gave him the same answer…

…and he doesn’t disappoint Remus this time either, as he says, “Of course I want this, you silly wolf, why else would I still be - ” _here?_ Sirius’ smiling face changes, looks troubled. “That’s it, isn’t it? You don’t know if I’m here because of the Order, or because of Harry, or because I’m trapped here, or…”

“You almost never said whether or not you wanted me. Before. And whenever I asked, that was your reply. I knew that you’d never put up with anything you didn’t have to, and that if you stayed with me, it was because you wanted to. But here… you can’t leave, can you?”

Sirius appears to have lost all interest in breakfast, and looks so _sad_ as he says, “I never thought about how this must be affecting you. You should never have doubted how I felt for you.”

“I know, but – ”

“I meant I should never have given you cause to doubt how I felt for you,” Sirius murmurs softly. “This is the first time I’m staying here with someone whose happiness depends on mine…” Sirius smiles hesitantly, brushing Remus’ face and throat with one hand. “I’ll just have to - ”

“Sirius! Are you awake yet?” It is Molly Weasley. _You’ll just have to…what?_ Sirius rolls his eyes at the door.

“We’ll just pretend we can’t hear her,” he says, shifting closer to Sirius. For a moment, it is almost as if they are back at school, hiding whenever someone tried to find them, regardless of what they might have wanted. Lying still and pressed against one another, trying not to breathe, the feeling is achingly familiar.

“Sirius! There’s a letter for you. From Dumbledore.” The timing really can’t be worse. He laughs weakly against Sirius’ chest.

“I could - ”

“You should go.”

“Remus, after everything I just said - ”

“I believe you Sirius. I do. You shouldn’t stay just to make a point.”

“It’s one worth making. I don’t want you to be unhappy,” Sirius insists, his fingers stroking gently along his face. “You can’t just stay with me out of - ”

“Sirius Black!”

_I can’t just stay with you out of…what? _But Sirius has lost the thread of the conversation and is roaring, “I CAN HEAR YOU, MOLLY!” at the door. Turning back to Remus, he lowers his voice to a whisper, “We’ll have to talk about this later,” he says, and Remus wants to curse, because as much as he wants Sirius to stay with him, or at the least finish his sentences, if Dumbledore has finally replied to their letter, Sirius needs to go _now_.

He settles tiredly back against the bed. “I’ll wait here, then,” he says softly as he picks up his tea. Smiling apologetically, Sirius pulls his robe and hair into a semblance of order as he goes out to deal with Molly.

“This just arrived for you from Dumbledore,” she says perfectly civilly, but her eyes, her facial expression, her entire demeanour accuse Sirius of sloth.

“Thank you, Molly.” Sirius shuts the door, but he can still hear them outside.

“The Professor’s waiting for you in the kitchen.”

_Dumbledore’s arrived?_ _It’s about bloody time_. He hears Sirius snap the seal on the letter, and say, after reading it, “Molly, can you ask Harry to join me in the kitchen?” and then both of them are stalking off in different directions.

He smiles as he sips his tea. Everything will be all right. He is certain of it.

~~*~~

Sirius enters the room after knocking politely. _Why does he look so angry? What’s happened?_ “What’s happened? You’ve been gone for so long, I thought…”

Sirius laughs bitterly, and tells him. How Harry will get lessons in Occlumency to protect himself, but it will be Snape who teaches him, not Dumbledore. How Snape derided Sirius’ godson in Sirius’ house, as well as Sirius himself, and Sirius tried to curse him, but Harry put himself between them both.

“Why did he do that, instead of just letting me hex the greasy bastard? You told me after your year in Hogwarts that Harry never cared for Snape. Why would he stop me, then?”

He stares at Sirius in disbelief. “It wasn’t Snape that Harry was trying to protect, Sirius.”

“There wasn’t anybody el– _me?_ You must be out of your mind. I don’t need anybody’s help when it comes to - ”

“Snape’s not the boy you fought in school, Sirius! There have been significant advances in hexes and curses in the twelve years you were away, you won’t know the counter‑spells, and he could have hurt you badly.”

“You think I can’t do it without James backing me up, don’t you. James wouldn’t have got in the way, and tried to stop the fight, he would have trusted me to win it.”

“It doesn’t matter whether you could have won, or not. Harry isn’t James, and James didn’t have everything to lose when you fought Snape at school. If James had lost you, he’d have mourned, but he’d still have had his parents, or his wife, or his son, or his career or _something _to go on with. You can’t be angry with Harry for not wanting to take the same risks, Sirius.” He is angry with Sirius for not seeing that other people care about him, love him, want to keep him safe. “You mean everything to Harry, you’re the only one who loves him unconditionally, you’re the only thing next to family he has left, if he loses you… He _loves _you, Sirius.”

“Are we still talking about Harry,” Sirius asks shrewdly, “or about you?”

“How can I protect you and keep you safe if you pick fights with other people behind my back?” Sirius scowls, and Remus ignores cramping muscles to sit up, grab his arm, and yank him into the bed. Kissing Sirius’ throat, he says, “At least let me teach you the hexes you don’t know.”

“What for? I’m hardly likely to be allowed to leave the house to help fight anytime soon.”

Licking over Sirius’ Adam’s apple, he continues, “_I’d_ feel much better, knowing your magic was up‑to‑date.”

Sirius snorts softly. “My magic must have gone to rot if you feel you have to goad me, guilt me _and _seduce me to get me to do what you want.” He looks in horror at the expression he knows he will find on Sirius’ face. _Fight or flight_. “Tell me, _Professor _Lupin, did you use all three methods to motivate your students when you taught at Hogwarts?”

“No,” he says hoarsely, hoping that if he can make Sirius laugh, he can avoid another fight. “I only ever used sex to motivate my students.” Sirius merely raises his eyebrows at him. “Flitwick recommended it, actually.”

Sirius resolutely refuses to laugh. “It’s not just your students, is it? It’s me, too, to distract me when you don’t want me to do something, or as a reward when you _do_ want me to do something. I’ll do anything you ask, Remus, but you have to _ask_.”

Sirius is trying to push him off and sit up, and Remus wrestles him down onto the bed, determined to be heard out, even if he has to sit on the other man. “I’m not using sex to manipulate you, you idiot, I use it to show you I _love_ you.”

“You’re lying.” Of all the responses he anticipated, this one isn’t even in the top fifty. Sirius is fighting him, struggling to get free, but there are spells he can use if he truly means to push past Remus, and until he does, Remus will use his superior strength to keep him there.

  
“I am not - ”

“_Don’t you dare deny it_.”

“Please let me finish.” Sirius is glaring at him – it is soul destroying to have that much anger directed at him from someone he loves – but Sirius is also silent, and waits for him to speak. “I love you, and I don’t understand why you won’t believe me. I stay in this awful house because of you. I spend all of my spare hours with you. If it were up to me, we wouldn’t be sleeping in separate rooms.” _If it were up to me, we wouldn’t be living here at all._ “That’s all that keeps me here. The fact that you need me.”

“I don’t need you.”

“Sirius - ”

“I _don’t_. I don’t need your help, I don’t need you to teach me stupid spells, I don’t need your pity, and I don’t need you. If that’s all that’s keeping you here, than you should _go_, Remus, because I will only ever make you unhappy.”

As hurtful as these words are, he is grateful that they at least are not spoken in anger. “Don’t you _want _me to stay?”

Sirius won’t meet his eyes, and his heart falls. “Yes, but… Only if you want to, Remus.” It is a faint whisper, but he has always been able to hear Sirius, no matter how softly he speaks.

And he realises that Sirius is just as uncertain about him as he is about Sirius. That Sirius is nervous – if he’s absolved Remus from staying out of pity, why would he stay here one moment longer?

“I do,” he says solemnly, and they both laugh uneasily. “I love you. I’m not staying out of pity, or guilt, or…I don’t know what else is going on in that head of yours, but one thing you’re going to need to get through it is that I’m here because I want to be.”

“It felt like you were making yourself stay. Like you didn’t want to be here.” He’s not sure what to say to that. “Especially when we had sex. It felt like you were only doing it because you thought you had to.”

“That’s not true!”

“Then why won’t you kiss me?” It is a broken, miserable whisper. _Oh, Sirius. _Anything short of the truth will result in another explosion, and Remus is tired, but he chooses his words carefully, and tries to explain to Sirius, who is shaking underneath him.

“It isn’t the smell. It’s the taste, and the association …”

The smell is something Remus associates with poverty, and despair – both of them things he’s dealt with nearly all of his adult life, and both of them feelings he is able to protect himself from. The taste, on the other hand… The taste of firewhisky inside someone’s mouth is something Remus associates with all of the partners – male and female, _every single bloody one_ – that he wasted his time with before he discovered Sirius. Drunken, unfulfilling encounters that he partly blames on teenage hormones and partly on the Curse wanting to mark its territory and distribute its seed as widely as possible.

Even the ones he slept with after they took Sirius from him – after he _let_ them take Sirius from him – had that in the common with the ones before. He associated that taste with desperation, and lust. Since Sirius has been confined to the house, whenever they kiss – and Sirius almost never initiates that anymore – he can feel that familiar surge of self‑loathing rise in him. His Sirius, who has always tasted of himself – natural, unpolluted and _clean_ – is not someone he wants to link with those emotions.

“I can’t kiss you when you taste like that,” he finishes. “Not you. The rest of them all needed to be drunk to want me. You were the only one who never did. The only one who wanted me because of who I was, and not because you were drunk and I was convenient. It never bothered me with you before, but now, when you’re stuck here, and when you taste like that… Sirius, I can’t.”

Sirius stares at him, sounding dreamlike as he says, “Let me go, Remus.” He moves off Sirius immediately, not sure whether Sirius means ‘Get off me’ or ‘Find someone else’. Before he can ask, Sirius has Apparated from him.

_When did this all become so difficult?_ Someone once said you never appreciated anything you didn’t have to work for, which fits all too well with how much he loves Sirius. At the same time, he can’t live with this uncertainty forever. _Maybe I _should _just leave, if he can’t bear this either. _

But leaving will mean going back to the flat in the square, and for him, if things with Sirius end forever, there are far more painful memories associated with that tiny flat than Grimmauld Place in all its Gothic glory. He has also hurt Sirius badly, never realising how easy it is to do, when the other man hides everything behind that self‑assured smile. Making himself get out of the bed, he reaches for a more presentable outer robe, and leaves his room to search for Sirius.

~~*~~

_He can’t have left the house. Unless he lied about the wards. But my Sirius never used to lie to me – concealed things, yes, but never lied._ Perhaps Sirius has started to lie to him, and this is just another sign of their deteriorating relationship, he thinks wearily. He has exhuastedly dragged himself through all of the dark corridors of this house, perversly leaving checking Sirius’ room until last. _Because if he isn’t in there, _he thinks as he stands outside the room, _then he really has left me. _

_Courage, Lupin,_ he tells himself and lets himself in.

The lights in the room are low, but he is inside it alone. _He’s gone. It’s over._ The despair is overwhelming – coming on the heels of what he thought was a reconciliation – and for a moment, he can’t think. When he is able to again, his first thought is for what he will tell the rest of the Order, and what he will tell Harry.

His second thought is that there is light shining from under another door. One that leads to the bathroom linked to this room. _Sirius. _It doesn’t occur to him to knock or ask permission before he removes this last barrier, and steps inside.

“Sirius?”

Sirius looks up in surprise, arrested in the act of winding a towel around his lower body. He recalls momentarily that Sirius hates people walking in on him, but that thought is chased out his mind as he stares. Sirius’ skin is wet and gleaming, and he smells of soda and mint and glycerine and more importantly, of _Sirius_. He realises his mouth is open in shock and surprise, and closes it. _All of this, done for me, and I thought you’d left me forever._

He walks over to Sirius before the other man can Apparate away, or say anything else, and gently backs him into the wall and kisses him. “I’m sorry if I scared you,” Sirius whispers against his mouth. “But when you told me why…” Sirius pulls away for a moment to trace the outline of his lips with a finger, “…I defy anyone else to wait one heartbeat longer than I did to remedy the situation.”

He kisses Sirius again, and when Sirius’ tongue slips past his lips and touches his own, all he can taste on it is sweet Sirius, exactly as it should be.

“I meant it when I said I’d do anything you asked, Remus. Why didn’t you say something sooner?”

“I tried to, but…” _It upset you so much… _“I had no right,” he confesses.

“You had every right,” Sirius says, and kisses him. “You _have _every right.” Those eyes are on him again, the steel grey softening into silver and smoke, and he can’t speak, swallowing the spit in his mouth and gazing back at Sirius. “If I have to choose between drinking myself unconscious, and you kissing me senseless, I know which one I’ll choose every single time, but let _me _choose. There isn’t much I’ll put before you.”

Sirius is already well on the way to making him want to stay, not just in this house, but with his arms around him forever. Joining their mouths again, he is reacquainting himself with the way Sirius shivers when he bites his lip – _ah, there – _and the way the inside of the other man’s mouth tastes when he licks the inside of it over and over and ­– _I could do this forever… Missed it so much, should have said something sooner…_

No longer content simply to accept what Sirius offers, he lets the towel falls away as he lifts Sirius into his arms and back to the bedroom. Sirius breaks the kiss, saying, “When you’re with me… You keep me _sane, _Remus. Until you found me again, I was just a dog trying to kill a rat. Barely remembered I was Sirius Black, didn’t recognise my face or my name in the posters they put up, barely remembered who Sirius Black _was_. Until you found me.”

Setting Sirius on the bed, he leans forward over him and kisses Sirius’ smiling mouth, licking at the corners of the smile, trying to map the curve of his lover’s lips with his tongue. “Remus,” Sirius says with some difficulty, around the way his mouth is being licked. “Isn’t it better for you to stay because it’s what we both _want _than out of responsibility or guilt?” Remus drops his head onto Sirius’ shoulder, unwilling to say anything when Sirius is speaking to him so lovingly, choosing instead to nuzzle Sirius’ throat. “Please say something, Remus,” Sirius whispers.

“You should probably shut the door,” he says, laughing softly as Sirius’ expression turns to horror.

“All hells!” Sirius throws him off, reaching for a night shirt at the same time and something painful presses into him as he rolls onto his back.

Reaching under himself, he pulls the shapes out. “What is - ” He recognises the mirrors instantly. “What are these for?”

“I found them after I finished with Snape. I wanted to give one to Harry, so he can tell me if Snape’s a problem. It’s the only safe way to communicate.”

“Molly is going to have your bollocks for this,” he laughs, setting the mirrors aside. He realises that Sirius forgot about both the mirrors and the wide open door, and that this is the first time in months – perhaps in fourteen years – that Sirius is focussed on _him_, to the point where he forgets about other things. This is a thousand times more arousing than anything anybody else has done for or to him.

“I’ll tell Harry not to tell her. Interfering witch.” Sirius grins and pulls the nightshirt over his head. “Planned to wrap it tonight. If Molly thinks it’s a Christmas present, we might be able to get it past her and into the school.” Standing, Sirius crosses to the door, and is about to shut it, when he hesitates and turns back to him, asking, “Do you want to stay here, tonight?”

_Of course I do. _“Give me a minute.”

He returns to his own room, shuts it and locks it from the inside, and then Apparates back to Sirius, who shuts the door and comes and sits on the bed. He leaps up onto the bed, next to where Sirius is sitting, lying down and placing his head on Sirius’ lap to be stroked. He can sense Sirius grinning, and a moment later, Sirius is rubbing behind his ears. “If I had you to myself,” Sirius whispers, “I’d have wrapped my legs around you and ridden you to bed, rather than let you carry me like that.”

“You’ll have me to yourself when I get back tomorrow,” he says, having to really concentrate on what he is saying when Sirius touches him like that. “You can do that and more, if you like,” he manages, before Sirius’ fingers twist and pinch and make him whine high in his throat, wordlessly begging for more.

Sirius is the only one who knows that he loves having this done nearly as much when he’s human‑shaped as he does when he’s wolf‑shaped. Sirius is the only one who has done this for him without making a ‘Whatever works for you, Christ you’re strange’ face. Sirius is the only one who knows how good this feels.

“I should think so. After they all go, after Arthur and Molly return to The Burrow, we’re celebrating our anniversary properly.” Sirius settles back onto the bed, and draws Remus back with him, his fingers still rubbing idly. “Once you get back here tomorrow, Lupin, you’re _mine._”

He extinguishes the lights, and snuggles into Sirius, feeling the other man pressed against his right side, from head to heel. Sirius’ fingers run from behind his ear, down his neck, along his chest, down one arm and intertwine with his own fingers, settling against his hip to keep him close. “Not just when I get back tomorrow, Black. I’ve been yours for years.”

It doesn’t matter that they’re both too tired to do anything more than curl into one another’s arms and sleep. He will take this intimacy, this closeness that Sirius has offered him, over anything else he could initiate with Sirius that the other man will merely tolerate passively. Sirius’ lips brush against his shoulder, and he can feel Sirius’ nose pressing against his throat.

“I love you,” Sirius whispers.

“I love you, too,” he whispers back. It is the first time in over fifteen years that he has had a chance to say that.


	9. Christmas Holidays, 1976-77

He is roused from his half awake doze by banging on the door and yelling outside. Remus still has his arms wrapped around him from the previous night. _Oh…nooo, that’s not where your hand was last night… _“They want to know if you’re up yet,” Remus whispers into his ear, stroking his knuckles gently over Sirius’ night shirt directly above his groin and rousing him down there too, asking. “What would you like me to tell them?”

“Sirius Black! Remus Lupin! It is nearly noon! Get out of there this instant and tell me if you want breakfast or lunch, or you’ll have neither!”

“In a minute, uncle!”

“And stop calling me that! It makes me feel old!”

“Must you both yell?” Remus asks, kissing his throat and moving down to his chest.

“Yes,” he insists, shivering under Remus’ efforts. Turning to the door again, he roars back, “You _are _old!”

There is laughter from further down the hall, heard over the muttered, “Right, that is _it_.” More stamping and banging, and then Alphard is outside the door to their room again. “Boys, if I don’t get a proper answer out of you before I count to ten, I am coming in there.”

Sirius grins, preparing to call his uncle’s bluff, but the threat alarms Remus who is scrambling to cover both of them properly and wrapping his arms around them protectively.

“We’ll be downstairs in half an hour, Mr Black. Whatever you’re having for breakfast or lunch would be lovely.” Remus’ hand is over his mouth and he licks at the other boy’s palm, causing Remus to curse and pull away. His uncle clearly wasn’t expecting a polite response, and seems to be lost for words.

“All right… Well, Marius and I are having breakfast, so if the two of you could - ”

“You hypocrite!” he yells at his uncle. “The two of you only just got up now too, didn’t you?”

There is an explosive noise outside the door, as though Alphard is choking on his own exasperation. “The day is almost half _gone,_ Sirius. There are only two days of holiday left, and we still need to buy your new robes.” He outgrew his old ones before the summer, and the new ones Mother had made are all black and silver. He wants something blue.

“We’ll be down shortly, then,” he concedes – more to get rid of his uncle than anything else – because Remus is trying to see what he hides under his nightshirt, and he needs all his wits about him to put a stop to it.

“Good. See that you are,” Alphard sighs and he can hear his uncle walking back to the stairs.

“I didn’t say we’d be down shortly. I said half an hour,” Remus smiles, reaching down. He catches Remus’ hands as Remus rolls on top of him, trapping his hips between his knees and squeezing. This is new and unfamiliar territory. “What can I do to you in half an hour, I wonder?”

“You tell me,” he says, smiling up at Remus as the other boy pulls his hands out of his grip, and bends forward to kiss him. _This_ is more familiar, but only because it is almost all they’ve spent their time doing since New Year’s Eve.

It was the day before Christmas Eve, when he arrived back at Hogwarts. Stella Mira, his black eagle owl, arrived on Christmas Day, and he sent her off to this Uncle Alphard of his, asking if he and Remus could stay with him in London for New Year’s Eve, and also if Alphard could give him permission to leave the school. The day before New Year’s Eve, Alphard showed up at Hogwarts and apologised to him for his delay. _“I’m sorry I wasn’t in Britain for Christmas – I’d have invited you to spend it with me. I can make it up to you for New Year’s, though.”_

Remus was amazed to find out that he knew _the _Alfred Noire who owned the music club on the corner of Circe Square and Music Alley, and then cursed his own stupidity, for not realising that Alfred Noire was Sirius’ uncle, Alphard Black. Alphard seemed far too easy going and interested in Muggles to be a Black. He thought that might be why his parents had never spoken about him much. Then he and Remus were introduced to Marius – Alphard’s _friend_ – at Hogsmeade, before the four of them portkeyed to the flat the two of them shared. The flat was across the square from the nightclub they owned. And after his first visit to the nightclub, he realised why his uncle rarely visited them.

“It’s not because of Marius. Not entirely. That wouldn’t have bothered the rest of them, as long as nobody else knew about it. Cassie even met him once – was nothing but courteous and polite. No, what really did the damage was the fact that even though I married Persephone Malfoy and gave her two daughters, her third daughter was not mine. Narcissa’s father was a Malfoy too. But Cassie and Persephone have never gotten along well – Cassie had intended to name _you_ Andromeda, if you were a girl, and after Persephone stole the name for her second daughter, Cassie went to some trouble to ensure you and Regulus would be boys. The fact that Persephone had cuckolded me – although to be fair, it wasn’t something that ever worried me – damaged the House of Black’s prestige, and I don’t think Cassie has ever forgiven me for letting it happen.”

“Father mentioned it, when I said I didn’t want to marry Narcissa. He and Mother used it to stir up the Malfoys. He said he’d permit Narcissa’s engagement to Lucius Malfoy in exchange for them conceding ground to us in Council. The Malfoys agreed, votes were exchanged and the contract was signed. The next day, Mother had someone spread the rumour that Narcissa was illegitimate and not a real pure‑blood, either.”

Alphard grinned wickedly. “That sounds like the Cassie we all know and love. The prize is always poisoned.”

“If I’d stayed betrothed to Narcissa… If I hadn’t… The Malfoy’s couldn’t have… Father would still …” And he was crying all over again, with Alphard trying to soothe him, telling him that these were battles that the families had been fighting for generations, and none of it was his fault.

The overriding thought in his mind was that if he’d left the betrothal alone, his parents would never have tried to put one over the Malfoys and Father would be alive now. That lasted until New Year’s Eve, when Alphard and Marius brought he and Remus to the club – called ‘The Hydra’, presumably after Alphard. He felt completely disoriented, wearing odd Muggle clothing for the first time in his life, his sight and hearing confounded by the music and the lights. It was terrifying, being in an environment so alien he couldn’t even bluff his way through it, but Alphard told him he’d seen Remus around the club during the summer, and to let the other boy look after him.

The idea behind ‘clubs’ confused him, when Alphard tried to explain it. _Why would people come to such a place in order to meet someone to marry?_ _Why can’t their parents arrange a match for them,_ he asked Alphard and his uncle turned red and ran away. Marius was the one to explain that what people went to clubs to do did not always lead to marriage. _But that doesn’t mean they can’t have fun trying, _he added cryptically, grinning after Alphard.

In addition, people who came to _this_ club weren’t able to marry – at least, not marry the people they came to the club to meet – and in fact, this club was one of the few places in the city where it was safe for them even to meet, and be together. _Oh,_ he said, when the pieces finally fell into place_, because it’s not possible for two men to marry one another._ And immediately on the heels of that thought was, _I thought you said you’d seen Remus in here before?_ Which apparently was Marius’ cue to turn red and run away.

Now all he associates the betrothal contract with is the fact that if he were betrothed to Narcissa still, he wouldn’t have let Remus pull him into his lap and kiss him in the club. At the time, it was just one more strange, new thing in a night that had been full of strangeness and newness.

But it felt so _good_, straddling Remus’ legs, with Remus’ arms around him and Remus’ hands cradling the back of his head, stroking through his hair, pulling him forward and angling his face so Remus could get to him better. He wanted to make Remus feel as good as he did, opened his mouth to lick at Remus’ lips the way Remus was lapping at his, when suddenly, Remus’ tongue plunged past his lips and teeth, and his mouth was bitten and licked inside and out, and he was dizzy from lack of air, but wanted it to never stop.

Now, every time their mouths meet, he feels warmth bubbling up from his belly, surging upwards toward his brain, filling his thoughts with heat. No longer strange, but right. No longer new, but familiar. Despite that, he can’t _think _for all the heat in his brain when Remus tilts his head back against the pillows and seals his mouth over his own, as though he intends to devour him whole. There are fingers stroking his throat, fluttering against his collarbone, undoing his nightshirt, and he has to reach a hand out to push them away. “_Nnn_…Remus, don’t…” The fingers withdraw immediately, moving back to his head and tangling in his hair.

“It’s okay, Sirius. Relax,” Remus says, even though Remus himself is anything but relaxed, tense and hard and rubbing against Sirius’ side. Whenever he can remember to relax, everything is fine. He can concentrate on the way Remus rotates his crotch against his hip, which makes _his _cock twitch even though nothing is touching it. On the way Remus holds his head between his hands, as though it is something precious. On the way Remus licks his nipples through the thin cotton of his nightshirt, which for some reason makes the head of his aching cock wetter and wetter.

When he relaxes, he can forget that all of this is being done to him for the first time, and that all too soon, the hands will move away from his head and start tugging urgently at the hem of his nightshirt again. “All right, Sirius?” Remus’ breath is coming in short, panting puffs now, and he can feel them warm against his ear.

“All right,” he lies softly, trying not to show the fear he feels. “I – Oh _hells._” Something inside him_ snaps. _There is no better word for it than that. “All hells,” he curses again. Something is trying to tear out of his bones, set fire to his blood, and peel his muscles apart.

“Sirius, what’s wrong?”

“Get Alphard, please,” _and get out, now. _He is in so much pain, yet his overwhelming concern is that Remus shouldn’t see him throw up.Remus doesn’t even stop to collect a robe – just runs to the door in his pyjama bottoms and yells for Mr Black to hurry, Sirius is thrashing, Sirius is screaming, Sirius is in pain, come here now and help him.

“He’s coming, Sirius, lie back.” Remus tries to put a hand on his forehead to stroke his face, and then snaps it away as though he’s burned it. “Christ!”

“Sirius?”

It is his uncle and Marius, both with their wands out, approaching him. _Make Remus go, make him wait outside, I’m going to…_ It is too late. Alphard is just turning to ask Marius to check the wards on the flat, and for Remus to check the locks on all the doors and windows, just as something wrenches free inside him, as if someone is trying to yank his spine out through his mouth, and then he is vomiting all over the bed.

~~*~~

The pain is gone as suddenly as it started, and despite his protests, Sirius is made to spend the rest of the day in bed, drinking endless cups of tea – each weaker than the last – while Remus sits at his bedside and strokes his arm repeatedly. “I don’t like seeing you in pain,” Remus says, as Sirius forces himself to drink another cup of tea – if you can call something that’s mostly hot water and milk, which may perhaps have _seen _a tea leaf before it left the kitchen, tea. “I like it less when I can’t do anything about it.”

For all the social etiquette that was covered as part of his upbringing, he can’t think of the appropriate response to such a declaration.

Later that evening, when Remus starts to kiss him again, Sirius doesn’t try to stop him when his hands lift his nightshirt up to his waist, baring him from his hips down. He keeps his hands away from Remus’ head as the older boy bends over his cock. He hides his alarm when he realises that Remus is going to take his cock into his mouth and instead of pushing him away, he lies back and clenches his fingers in the bed sheets. _Will he want me to do the same for him? _The warm air Remus breathes out over his penis, before he takes the head into his mouth and clamps his lips just under the head, sets heat boiling in his stomach again. It spreads out faster than it did this morning, setting fire to his spine, igniting his brain, and he is thrashing again, his head whipping from side to side on the pillows.

_I should relax,_ he tells himself, but the thought is far away, and surreal, and patently ridiculous. How can he relax when one of his best friends is licking the head of his cock, and then sucking on the rest of it, and then rolling his balls between his fingers? He feels as though he is strung tighter than a harp string, and when Remus’ fingers move to his arsehole, his entire body lifts off the bed, and his cock is spurting wet, warm and white, all over his belly and thighs.

The heat that was building up inside him vanishes in an instant, shooting out of his body along with his seed, and his hips spasm up again and again until Remus places an arm just below his navel and holds him down. Holds him down to kiss all over his flaccid cock, and to lick at the white on his legs, and the sweat forming in the creases where his thighs join his crotch.

Remus comes back up to kiss him, and he wants to pull away – he knows all too well what that mouth has just done – but when Remus kisses him, and he tastes himself on the other boy’s tongue, he can feel the heat building in him again. Despite his tiredness, despite the fact that this is the most the two of them have done together since New Year’s Eve, he knows they are not done yet. He shivers, and Remus draws the covers up around both of them, kissing his throat and the side of his neck, whispering things to him that make his spent cock jump like a salmon under the sheets.

Intertwining the fingers of their right hands under the sheet, Remus guides them past the waistband of his pyjamas. _How can stroking his cock make mine twitch like that,_ Sirius wonders, as his fingers are left to continue their stroking alone, and Remus moves his own further down between his legs. Remus’ whispers become groans, and he is thrusting up into Sirius’ hand, and when he shouts, Sirius’ fingers come away wet and sticky. He hides his shock when Remus brings Sirius’ fingers up to his mouth, and asks him to taste them, and he does as Remus says, because for all he knows, this is what two boys do to please one another.

Without being asked, he pushes the sheet aside and keeps the fear off his face as he lowers his face over Remus’ cock. He even manages to smile at Remus before he leans forward to clean Remus as Remus cleaned him. Remus whispers all the way through it how beautiful he is, how perfect he is, how wonderful it feels when he moves his tongue there like – _oh – _that, and then the whispers give way to a frantic, high‑pitched whining sound.

As they adjust their clothes, Remus holds him closely, kisses him, and tells him to sleep soundly. Wrapped in the tangled sprawl of their limbs, Sirius realises he will have to say something eventually, that he has a thousand questions for one or both of Alphard and Marius, that he can’t hide his ignorance forever, and that he is balancing on a treacherously thin wire between Remus’ desire and his own inexperience.

~~*~~

The next day, they go ahead with their plan of shopping for new clothes, for no other reason than to spite whoever tried to hurt him. He and Remus look for ready‑made robes in Music Alley, the side lane that links Circe Square with Diagon Alley. Since he needs the clothes for tomorrow, he has to ignore his mother’s voice in his head, insisting in an outraged voice that _you don’t know _who_ could have tried the things on before you. When you buy clothing, you have it fitted to yourself._

He is undoing the dark blue robe he has tried on, when the curtains to the change room flex, and Remus walks in. Startled, he instinctively pulls the garment around him and flinches at the hurt that flashes on Remus’ face before the other boy suppresses it. It doesn’t matter that Remus has seen more of him than this already. _Stupid curtain. Why aren’t you a door I can lock?_

“Sorry. I thought you were done. They’re ready to put your order together.” Taking him in from head to toe, Remus smiles, and adds, “You look lovely. Dark blue suits you.” He knows now that the heat he feels spreading through him when he is near Remus, or when Remus touches him, is nothing more than his skin flushing and burning red. He can feel the blush start at his stomach and burn its way up to his throat, along his cheeks.

“You said the same thing about the silver shirt I was wearing on New Year’s Eve.”

“Did I? Probably said it just to get into your trousers.” He laughs and turns back to his reflection, watches the glass as Remus approaches him from behind, wraps his arms around his waist and kisses his throat, licking the ripples in his throat as he giggles. “I think I prefer you in trousers, to this,” he says, running his fingers along the fabric of the robe.

“I don’t. They feel wrong. Touch me in all the wrong ways.” They are staring into each other’s eyes in the reflection.

As soon as the words are out of his mouth, Remus laughs huskily against his ear, and rubs his groin against his arse. “Whereas in this, I can get to you faster and touch you in all the right ways,” Remus murmurs, his trailing fingers pushing past the robe and reaching for him. All the while, Remus’ other arm grips his hips, and moves his rear in a slow, erotic, grinding circle against Remus’ hardening cock.

_Oh, that’s… That’s… Remus, you have to stop, right now…_

“We can’t do this in here, Remus.” _We can’t do this until I’ve had a chance to talk to Alphard…_ It is a while before Remus releases him, and even then, he rests his forehead on his shoulder, breathing rasping and shallow.

“You’re right,” he says, avoiding Sirius’ gaze in the reflection. “You get changed, and then we should head back to the flat. Marius was expecting us back an hour ago.”

“Wait,” he says, grabbing the belt loop of Remus’ trousers and yanking the other boy toward him. Remus shouldn’t think that he doesn’t want him, and if he has to choose between his fear and Remus’ hurt, he knows which he would rather soothe. Winding his hands through Remus’ hair, he pulls the other boy’s head down to be kissed. This is the first time he has initiated the kiss, and pushing past Remus’ lips, he strokes his tongue along Remus’ own, hearing Remus make that soft, whining sound in his throat again.

Within a heartbeat, he is shoved back against the wall of the change room, his head rebounding off the wall with a solid _smack_, and Remus is pushing against him. “Sirius, if you wanted me to go, this is the worst thing you could possibly have done, you wretched tease.” Remus is panting, planting damp, licking kisses on his eyebrows, his nose, his cheeks, his ears, along his jaw, and down his throat, one hand reaching for the fastenings of his robe, snapping the catches loose. He doesn’t understand what Remus has just said, and tries to catch the other boy’s hands and keep them from tearing his clothes away.

“Remus, you have to - ” His words are cut off as Remus kisses him hard, as though he is trying to kiss him through the wall. His head smacks against the wall again, and he whimpers in pain. Both his mouth and the back of his head will be bruised tomorrow. _If they aren’t bruised by this afternoon. _He tries to draw a breath in high alarm as Remus reaches for the catches at his waist, but can’t breathe with Remus’ mouth over his own. _No, no, no, take your hand away from there, you can’t do that here._ His robe falls away, and he is naked in the change room of a respectable clothing shop with his – _what? Friend? Boyfriend? – mashing _him against the wall, and every time he parts his lips to speak, his mouth is filled with the other boy’s tongue.

“Tell me, Sirius, did the others like it when you teased them like this?” _What others? What are you talking about? _“I’m afraid it really doesn’t do anything for me,” and suddenly he can’t think because icy, cold fear is cutting through the heat of Remus’ ministrations. Remus is stronger than he is, and Remus might not mean to hurt him, but Remus won’t _listen_ to him either_,_ and his wand is on the other side of the room in his other robe. _Let me go_, he pleads in his head, but it is no good, because Remus can’t read his mind, and Sirius is still too stubborn to say the words aloud.

“Remus, we can’t do this in here, anybody could walk in,” he says, trying to stay quiet and control his rising panic, only barely managing to keep his expression calm.

“Anybody could have walked in when you kissed me just now,” Remus grins, and tickles him gently by stroking his fingers along his sides. “Relax, Sirius, this won’t take long.”

As Remus removes his hands from Sirius to undo his own clothing, he shoves Remus away, hard. “We _can’t_, Remus, not in here.” Gasping for air, he pulls the robe he wore when they entered the shop around him. The hurt on Remus’ face is a hundred, thousand, million times worse than it was before. “I’m sorry, but there are some things I need to tell you...”

“Let me guess. You’ve decided you don’t like boys any more?”

“No, that’s not - ”

“Or is it me you don’t like?” He isn’t sure what to say, and doesn’t want any attempt he makes to comfort Remus to be misconstrued as teasing – whatever _that _is – again. The silence stretches out, and Remus gets up, saying, “I’ll wait for you outside.” He wishes Remus wouldn’t look at him like that. “You let me know when you make up your mind what you want, Sirius.”

_You,_ he thinks brokenly. _It’s you I want_, but Remus is leaving, and the curtain flutters shut behind him.

He has just finished fastening his robe, and is starting to gather all his things, when he hears someone say, “– must be empty, I’m sure I saw someone come out of it.”

_For pity’s sake, we can’t have been caught already_. Weaselling out of a thousand pranks hasn’t been for nothing. At least he is fully dressed. He checks his features in the mirror. _Calm. Assured. Whoever you are, you’re about to barge in on me, and I _will _be displeased._ The curtain snaps apart again, and it is as though he is looking into another reflection, wearing the same silver and black robes he is, as well as the same arrogantly bored expression.

“Is there someone in there?” another voice asks from far away.

“Just my younger brother, Barty,” the reflection says coolly. _Younger brother?_ With a start, he realises that the figure in front of him is Regulus, older and taller. Still, Regulus is the younger of the two of them, and as the senior, he refuses to acknowledge his brother until Regulus says something first.

“You can’t just stare at one another forever, Sirius,” Barty laughs. “He’s your older brother now. You have to acknowledge him first.”

As much as the pure‑blood hierarchies and social rituals disgust him, he is more familiar with them than he is with whatever it is Remus wants from him, and he no longer has to work at maintaining outward calm. He might not know how two boys are supposed to pleasure one another, but he knows with absolute certainty that Blacks are superior to Crouches, and that Barty has spoken out of turn.

“Barty, were you given permission to speak on my behalf, when I wasn’t looking?” Regulus asks, with calm menace.

“I - ”

“Wait on the other side of the shop. Better still, wait in the sweet shop in Diagon Alley, if you can’t be trusted to know when to speak.” Barty shoots a furious look at both of them before leaving. Regulus has not broken eye contact with him for a second. His lips curve into a lazy smile. “Nothing to say, little brother?”

“Who did this to you?” he demands, finally given the opening he needs, even though it is far from courteous. He is staring at his baby brother – staring _up _at his baby brother – who is now taller than he is. _Someone took you and stretched you and aged you and hurt you and I know who it was. All hells, I know who did this to you._

“Mother had to.” _No. I did this to you. I should have taken you with me. _“We didn’t know what had happened to you, couldn’t trace you. Cowering behind the protection spells at Hogwarts, were you? Where have you been?”

“That’s none of your business.” It is too quick, too defensive, but he can’t think properly. He finds it difficult to believe that five minutes ago, his biggest concern was being found naked in a public change room with another boy kissing him. Now…

“Isn’t it? I’m your older brother, now. You belong to the House of Black, and you really should do as I say, instead of making me cross.”

“I don’t belong to the House of Black.” He is determined to control this conversation. “I asked Mother for something, and she told me it was out of the question, to never ask her again. If she wants me to come back so badly, then she has to give me something in return for doing what she wants.” Regulus raises an eyebrow, his face remaining otherwise smooth. “You don’t have to stay with her either, baby cat. She only wants to use you. She’s already using you, look at what she’s done to you.”

“Don’t call me that,” his brother snaps, face losing its lazy hauteur for a moment. “I don’t care what you think you know. It only looks like she’s using me because I’m not selfish like you, and want to do this for our family. What sort of Gryffindor are you anyway, to run like a coward as soon as things get difficult? You’re _pathetic_.” Regulus looks two or three years older than Sirius is – _Seventeen. She’ll have made him seventeen so he can vote at Council – _but he still sounds like a furious twelve‑year‑old underneath all the airs and graces. “I could make you come back. You wouldn’t like it if I did.”

Regulus has his wand out, has it pointed at his chest. _I’m not pathetic. I’m not a coward._ He fights down panic – it has become second nature, of late – and forces himself to smile. “As if you could,” he scoffs. “Put that thing away, and - ”

“You can’t intimidate or bluff me. I learned all those tricks too. I know you’re only fifteen and can’t do magic outside of school. Do you want to draw your wand, and pretend you could fight back if you wanted to?”

He can hear Father’s voice in his head. _Never draw your wand, unless you mean to use it_. He was brought up never to use it to pose, or threaten or cajole – only for when magic was intended.He was six when he learned that lesson. Regulus was three, and will not remember. Has someone taught him since then? Does his brother really mean to hex him, or is he bluffing?

“Do as I say, Sirius. I’ll give you one more chance to admit defeat.”

His hand is on his wand in an instant and he pulls it free of his robes, holding it in front of him unflinchingly. “Are you sure I can’t do magic, Regulus? If you and Mother couldn’t track me, what chance does the Ministry have?” He lets himself smile, slow and threatening until his lips are peeled back and he is showing teeth. _Believe me. Back down now._ “Mother won’t be pleased if she hears we fought in public, _baby cat_.” There are terrified noises coming from the workbench to his left, but all of his attention is on his younger brother. He thinks he can hear the shop bell jangle as the door opens, too, but he can’t afford to look away for a second.

“Mother isn’t going to hear about anything I don’t want her to, _puppy_.” His fingers clench around his wand at the nickname. “You’re not of age yet, whereas I am, so - ”

“What a coincidence. So am I.” He wonders how far from the store Remus walked before he realised Sirius wasn’t following, and came back to investigate. Remus draws his wand as he places himself between the two of them, shielding him with his body. “Come try it, Black. You might be of age too, but I’ve four years of spell work you lack.”

“Move out of the way, Mudblood,” Regulus orders. Sirius disguises his shock – both of them were brought up with strict instructions not to swear in public.

“What will you do if I don’t?” Remus asks pleasantly, almost conversationally, but his fingers clench around his wand, too, turning his pink knuckles pale yellow.

_Will he attack? _He is sure Regulus would have left him alone before Remus returned – Mother was always very strict on maintaining the unity of the House of Black in public, and if Regulus begins a duel between the two of them, she’ll be severely displeased. With Remus between them, however… _Regulus could attack Remus first, and then say the hex missed and hit me instead…_

Regulus clenches his jaw and appears to reach a decision, swinging his wand arm wide.

“You, boy, why are you harassing my nephew?” Alphard has come looking for them, and reaches for Regulus from behind, spinning him around to face him.

“Tell him to move out of the way, then, and I’ll - ” Regulus’ wand arm falls, as he sees who he’s addressing. “Here, I’m your nephew too.”

“So you are.” Alphard is looking from him to Regulus and back again. “I’ve spent a little time getting to know Sirius better. Perhaps you’ll come back to my place for tea, and answer some of my questions so I can do the same with you.” It is more of an order than an invitation. As the younger Black, Regulus can’t tell him no. His brother hesitates, moderating his features once more, and then he is following Alphard out of the store without a second glance at either Sirius or Remus. Alphard in turn doesn’t bother to check whether Regulus is following or not – both of them are Black enough to know the proper way to behave in public.

Aware of where he is, that this is still a public place, he turns to the shopkeeper, who is watching them with horrified eyes from behind her workbench. He’s not sure whether or not he has any right to the Black name anymore, but if Alphard can still act like one in public with such spectacular results, he can do the same.

Addressing the shopkeeper lazily, as though he wasn’t seconds away from being hexed to within an inch of himself, as though nothing, in fact, has happened, he says, “So that’ll be four in dark blue, four in dark red, and I’ll need some plain black ones for Hogwarts. We can wait over there, while you get those together. Will you be long?”

The look on the shopkeeper’s face tells him she’ll _fly_ to get his order together if it will get him out of her shop faster.

~~*~~

“He’s swallowed an aging potion. It’ll permit him to attend meetings, and makes him Cassie’s heir. Without you at home, she wouldn’t have been able to transfer the wards from you to him, so she took more drastic steps. That’s what happened yesterday morning. I had my suspicions, but I didn’t think even Cassie would go that far.”

“Why did it hurt so much? It was only a ward.”

He and Alphard are sitting in the parlour of the flat, finishing the rest of the tea and scones. Marius and Remus are listening to one of the former’s music boxes in the kitchen, while they make dinner. Alphard was unwilling to have this conversation in front of either of them, and the music disguises their words. Marius insists that it has more to do with Alphard’s unwillingness to help cook.

“Not just a ward, pup. It’s a very powerful, Dark Spell. The keys were inscribed into your bones, within the hour of your birth. I was there. We all were. Watched as Antares brought this tiny, squalling, brilliant red thing into the nursery parlour at Grimmauld Place, and introduced all of us to you. He was so proud – you were the first boy to be born into the ruling line in quite a few generations. And then you were brought into the room just off the study, while Aunt Mia – that’d be your grandmother, Cassie’s mother – took some of your blood, cast the spells that tied you to Grimmauld Place and spell‑carved the ward’s runes onto your living bones.

“When Regulus swallowed the aging draft, all of that magic snapped out of you and into him. You won’t experience pain like that again. Not while Regulus lives. And it would have hurt him more, poor kid. He so desperately wants to do something about Antares’ murder. I’m sure he thinks he’s doing the right thing.” Alphard sighs. “That aside, you’re still a Black and nothing – not your brother’s aging, not your running away, not even being blasted off the tapestry – will change that.”

Seeing Regulus aged like that… _She’s called my bluff. She doesn’t need me anymore. Not when she has Regulus, her favourite, to do as she says._ He wonders if he’s been taken off the tapestry yet. _Does that mean I’m free to do whatever I want now? _He’s not sure about this. Regulus seemed determined to make him come home.

“That’s why you wouldn’t say this in front of Remus? Or even Marius?”

“See, you can be bright when you want.”

_Only about some things_. Which brings him to… “Can I ask you about something else?” Is it his imagination, or is Alphard looking wary?

“Yes…”

“About Remus?”

“Ah, damn. I knew this was where that was leading. You had to leave it till last, didn’t you? Let me believe I was going to be able to get away with packing you back off to school with an instructive book, and then _BAM_, like a bludger out of nowhere, when I least expected it.” Alphard notices the blush that is starting across his face again, because he swirls his tea, grins and challenges, “Go on, then. What is it you wanted to know?”

“We’re both boys.”

“Well done.” When he says nothing else, Alphard finishes his tea and says, “That wasn’t a question.”

“You’re not going to make this easy for me, are you?”

“Should I? I thought I’d managed to get out of this years ago when Persephone said she’d tell Bella and Andy what they needed to know, and that I was to stay out of it.”

“You could tell me how you and Mar - ”

Alphard shudders. “You don’t want to know about that. It would give you nightmares. Anyway, we’ve been together for nearly forty years. We’re both old. I’m sure they’ve changed how gay men have sex at least twice since we got together.”

“Alphard!”

His uncle bursts out laughing. “Sorry, pup, but you should see the look on your face.”

“Oh yes? Where’s this instructive book, then?” Sobering, Alphard sets his tea things down. “You fake. There isn’t an instructive book, is there?”

“The best advice I can give you is this. If you trust Remus, then whatever it is he wants, whatever it is you want, as long as it’s something that pleases you both, do it.”

“That’s all?”

“I should clarify - that doesn’t make what you do together legal, it doesn’t mean you can discuss it without getting some funny looks and it doesn’t mean other people won’t judge you or spread gossip if they know. But this isn’t about other people. This is about the two of you, and what you do is your business, as long as you keep it your business. Find what feels good, and then do it as hard as you can.”

“Does this include frolicking with goats?”

“As long as _all_ of you enjoy it, I said,” Alphard says, flinging a scone at his head. “But it’s quite difficult to tell with goats. Or so I’ve been told.”

“What if I don’t know what I want?” he asks hesitantly.

“I know you were taught to hide your fear, to never show uncertainty, and to never admit to ignorance. I’d bet my nightclub that at some stage in your upbringing, you’ve come across the expression, ‘It doesn’t matter if you’re right or wrong, so long as you’re certain’. Don’t deny it,” he says, as Sirius opens his mouth to protest. “Because I was brought up like that. So were Cepheus, Antares, Regulus, and generations of stubborn Blacks before you.”

“I wasn’t going to deny it.”

“Remus was your friend first, wasn’t he? He’s not going to hurt you.” Alphard sighs and stretches. “I could get you an instructive book, I suppose. But relationships are about more than just sex, puppy. These are things you need to talk through, and learn together. And a book isn’t going to tell you what makes _you _feel good, or what _you’re_ comfortable with, and that is much more important than simply knowing how to have sex. Forget about sex, or even knowing what you want, for the moment... You know you want _him_, don’t you?”

“Oh, yes.” He doesn’t even need to think about it, and Alphard grins at his immediate, unthinking response.

“Then just ask him to teach you.”

“He might laugh at me, if I say I don’t know anything.”

“He might. Are you going to let that stop you? The worst that can happen is he might burst a stomach wall laughing at your ignorance, and then he’ll probably spend the rest of the night remedying it.” Picking up both of their tea things and standing up, Alphard ruffles Sirius’ hair, saying, “Wish I was fifteen again.”

“Are you both done already? Dinner’s still a while away. Can I put those away for you, Mr Black?”

“Stop calling me that, Remus.” Sirius stands too, and turns around, seeing Remus standing in the doorway to the kitchen. Remus looks as though he is glowing with the light from the kitchen behind him, painting red-gold into his sandy hair, and sparking the green in his eyes. “I’ll just finish helping Marius with dinner,” Alphard says, before wandering past Remus and into the kitchen.

“I could have used your bloody help two hours ago,” Marius calls from the kitchen, before Alphard shuts the door firmly behind him.

Remus stays where he is, but he hasn’t taken his eyes off him. The green in them glows palely in the half‑light cast by the waning moon outside. “Dinner won’t be ready for another hour. I thought you should know,” Remus says softly, before turning to go.

He reaches a decision, and sprints after Remus, saying, “Remus, wait, please listen to me.”

Remus shoves his hand away, and turns, crossing his arms over his chest.

“Sirius, I don’t know what you get out of this, but I don’t like it when you start something you don’t intend to fin- ”

“I don’t know how to finish it,” he says. The words just fall out, and he can’t control them because his self‑assurance is in tatters, and his confidence is failing fast. “I hardly even know how to start it. Remus, I’m not entirely convinced I even know what ‘it’ is, and not just because we’re both boys. I’ve never – You’re the first person I’ve - ” He is telling Remus all of it, holding nothing back. Pouring out all of his fears and insecurities, and his uncertainty and ignorance about all things sexual.

“You complete idiot,” Remus says, still not uncrossing his arms, or moving any closer. “I thought it might be your first time with a boy, but the things you did, the way you touched me… You seemed to know exactly what you were doing.”

“I’m good at _seeming _to know what I’m doing,” he says, moving closer to Remus. “Moony, you scared me. And it was all my fault, I could see you getting angry, or hurt, but I was afraid of what you might want from me, or that I wouldn’t be able to do it right, and…”

“You’re good at everything at you do, Padfoot,” Remus says, holding his arms out to him. The use of his nickname calms him and reminds him that they are friends, before everything else. _He’s seen me cry, seen me throw up and today he had to protect me from my baby brother, and he hasn’t laughed at me yet._ “Why wouldn’t you be good at this, too?”

“Don’t know. Never tried.”

“I know that, now. I still find it hard to believe. Prongs had me convinced you’d had half the school.”

_What?_ “Don’t you think I would have said something if it’d been true?”

“Well, we thought you might not want it getting around and ruining your image. Prongs was certain it was the shy, hard‑to‑get act that had half the school trying to get into your trousers. Not that you ever wear trousers, but still.”

“What act?”

“Oh…” Remus can see he is getting annoyed, and leans down to kiss him. Absurdly, he thinks that on one level, it was good to see Regulus – he knows he’ll be as tall or taller than Remus when he finishes growing. “Little things. Like the way you never walked around the dorm or the quidditch change rooms half dressed.”

“Bothered Prongs, did it?”

“Fuck Prongs, Sirius, it bothered _me_. Always going into the bathroom fully dressed and coming out the same way. And you were the only one of us who _locked the door from the inside_, you uptight, precious, little thing, so I couldn’t even ‘accidentally’ walk in on you. I could never decide which I’d like less – having you caper about the dorm half-naked and driving me crazy, or not getting even a hint about what you took so much trouble to hide under those shapeless, stodgy robes.”

“I’d have shown you anytime you asked, Moony,” he grins. It isn’t strictly true – if Remus asked him before, he’d have screamed and run a mile, but now…

“Not good enough,” Remus says, pulling him closer and kissing him softly again. “I want you in nothing but tee-shirts and trousers from now on.”

“Do you really want the rest of the school to see me dressed like that, or do you want to be the only one who knows what I look like dressed like that?” And his reward is to be kissed again.

“The only one,” Remus replies, after catching his breath. “The first one,” he says, smiling against Sirius’ lips. “Am I that?”

“No, I forgot to mention that in between now and my engagement to Narcissa breaking up in August, I slept with half the school. I thought I’d try to get through the second half before Easter, and I’m starting with you.”

And they can’t kiss anymore, because they’re laughing too hard. The laughter subsides, and Remus tenderly strokes his hair away from his face, and they can’t seem to stop staring at one another.

“I’m glad you’re starting with me,” Remus says, altering the inflection of Sirius’ words. “But if you’ve never done anything with anybody before… How can I know you want this?”

“Of course I want this, Remus,” he says, straining up to kiss the other boy. “I’m still here, aren’t I?”


	10. Christmas Holidays, 1996-97 (Epilogue)

He spent the entire night talking only about Sirius, and his memories of him, and never asked Regulus what plans of his he was interrupting. _So much like my Sirius, would he have stayed if he knew I pitied him? _It is Christmas now, and he can hear carollers making their way along the street – _Following yonder star – _as the main door closes slowly – _O star of wonder, star of light – _behind Regulus. Surely the other man has somewhere to be? Someone to be with? The guilt at not making – _star with royal beauty bright _– more of an effort to convince to Regulus to stay is dissipating.

All of a sudden, he doesn’t care anymore. None of it matters, because the liquid is burning searing, lightning white, accompanied by scorching heat, and the only star, the only man in the world who has ever mattered to him, is rising naked from the steaming liquid like Venus Anadyomene. _But a thousand times more beautiful, and a million times more precious_. _My scorching one. My Sirius. _

Holding the dark blue robe out, Remus Lupin smiles, and walks towards him.

**Author's Note:**

> All comments and kudos are appreciated and treasured -- even (especially?) on a fic as old as this one!


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